Insertion Modes (Flame)

[edit...@cca.uucp]

>From POURNE@MIT-MC Sun Jun 5 05:08:48 1983
To tell what mode one is in, change the cursor to suit: transparent
blob for overwrite, blinking underbar for insert, whatever..

[edit...@cca.uucp]

>From BarryMargolin@MIT-MULTICS Sun Jun 5 05:29:19 1983
Date: 4 June 1983 05:44 EDT
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Insertion Modes (Flame)

to tell what mode one is in, ch ange the cursor to suit:

transparent blob for overwrite, blinking underbar for insert,
whatever..

I don't believe I didn't think of that! Its perfectly intuitive that
a blinking cursor means overwrite (or is that the underline cursor?
[see what I mean]).

Sorry for the sarcastic flame, but I do alot of user consulting at
one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the
world, and half of the people who text edit on our system can barely
deal with FINDING the cursor, much less deciding what mode they are
in by the type of cursor. Also, your solution only works for micros
and workstations which have complete control over the screen display.
Many of us in the real computer world use computers that talk to
ordinary ASCII terminals, most of which have only one cursor mode.
barmar