Computer Displays Optically Superimposed on Input Devices

Computer Displays Optically Superimposed on Input Devices By K. C. KNOWLTON (Manuscript received August 3, 1976) A set of pushbuttons on a console may appear to have computergenerated labels temporarily inscribed on them if the button set and computed display are optically combined, for example, by means of a semitransparent mirror. This combines the flexibility of light buttons with the tactile and kinesthetic feel of physical pushbuttons; it permits a user to interact more directly with a computer program, or a computer-mediated operation, in what subjectively becomes an intimately shared space. A console of this design can serve alternately as a typewriter, computer terminal, text editor, telephone operator's console, or computer-assisted instruction terminal. Each usage may have several modes of operation: training, verbose, abbreviated, and/or specialprivilege. Switching from one mode or use to another is done by changing the software rather than hardware; each program controls in its own way the momentary details of visibility, position, label, significance, and function of all buttons. Several demonstrations are described, including a prototype of a proposed Traffic Service Position System (TSPS) console, and an interactive computer terminal resembling a Picture phone® set with a Touch-Tone® pad. Also suggested are combinations of computed displays with x-y tablets and other input devices. In interactive use of computers, a large number of advantages result from virtually superimposing the computed display on an input device such as a two-dimensional array of pushbuttons.1-2 A display so arranged can be used effectively to label buttons or relabel them with new meanings; indeed the buttons themselves may seem to appear and disappear according to their momentary significance or nonsignificance to the program.