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JohnT

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Capitalist
Mar 1999 time: 00:22
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Nope. Lans invented a "directional tablet" in some undetermined time, somewhere between 1968 and 1973. Most links that I've googled claim, at best, that he "co-invented" the mouse, but the most detailed report is the following usenet post (archived to the web):
http://lists.personaltelco.net/pipe...1q3/009300.html
Fact is, Engelbart invented it, he demo'd it, he has the patent on it, and hell, we even have video of his 1968 demo. Lans invented a touch-screen accessory (The Houston Instruments HIpad) that was used as a pointer device.
There is also Harken Lans home page that doesn't help to shed any light on the subject:
http://www.gpc.se/founder/
The Usenet post above "feels" right... he invented the pad, some tech-illiterate journalists then "gave" him the credit for the mouse, and then Lans kinda, sorta, didn't disabuse them of that notion. 'Bout what you expect from the guy who tried to press his claim that he invented computer graphics. 
Tho' he did a good job on that GPS-thingy, heh? 
Last edited by JohnT on 17-10-2002 at 18:22
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Ethelred
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quote: Originally posted by Ned
John T, The colloquy with the Swede reminds me of the claims by the Russians when I was growing up to have invented virtually everything America was famous for.
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I think that was more of an American perception because of claims that a Russian invented the airplane. Well a Russian did off the ground. Got back too. Course he died in the last part.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001 time: 15:22
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quote: Originally posted by Ethelred
I am writing in American. I don't call a milk truck a milk float for instance. Take a look at how the Canadians write here. Its hard to tell them from the Americans. Except for the trolling of course. |
No- you're writing in English. You're simply operating a local franchise, that's all. You call a tap a faucet because to tap/tup, had more, ah, lubricious connotations (think of Othello- trying to arouse Brabantio's anger at Othello, Iago yells at him in the middle of the night, "Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe" (1.1.88-89) ). Similarly, you call what is self-evidently a stone and not a larger object, a rock- because stones were another name for testes.
There are differences in Canadian English and American English, just as there are even between Australian and New Zealand English. 'American' has yet to progress to the new or different language stage. On the other hand, we do it all those loan words from Native American languages, and the added vigour of Yiddish terms and the slightly Germanic flavour of some American English usage.
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