Re: Apples and RSI...

[bjblackbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major)]

Dave:  People think carpal tunnel syndrome affects only keyboard
pounders--but it doesn't.  A mother of a friend of mine has it in BOTH
hands--she doesn't even use a computer, but is a pianist.  I've also heard
that factory workers and people in occupations such as butchers, etc. also
experience this very painful injury.

You can't count typewriters, because they were not used for as many hours
straight as computers *normally* are in today's world.  The bottom line
is--take breaks and take care of your wrists.  Even people I know who have
the surgery tell me that they are never the same and still have to limit
their keyboard usage to a few hours a day - so don't think that just
because this problem didn't surface years earlier for you that you'll never
get it or are not prone to it.  Take care!

=====================================================

In article <621hid$cvs@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>,
dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff) wrote:

> Yesterday, I had an eye-opening experience.
> 
> I've been using computers extensively since about 1981.  That year, I
> learned BASIC on a TRS-80 model I (at least it was Level II...), and
> quickly moved up to the Apple ][+.  I first met the Apple ][e in about
> 1982, and one landed in my household in...uh, I think it was very late 1983.
> 
> All through high school (1984-1988) I practically lived in the computer
> lab, pounding away on the ][e's, either writing Applesoft programs or
> doing word processing, or whatever.
> 
> When I got to college, I still used the ][e at home extensively.  The
> University had a computer lab; one side was IIgs's, the other side was IBM
> PS-2/30's.  You can guess which machines I used.
> 
> After graduation, I was eventually hired by the university.  They
> "upgraded" the computer lab, replacing the PS/2's with generic 80486
> machines, and replacing the IIgs's with Macintosh Quadra 660AV's.  The old
> machines were distributed across campus.  Two of the IIgs's went to the
> television studio...one for my desk, one for production.
> 
> So I have been using various Apple ]['s for about sixteen years now.  The
> computer lab just got another upgrade; this time they replaced the 80486
> machines with Pentium machines (but they kept the Quadras).  Each of the
> keyboards on the PCs now has a little orange sticker warning of the
> dangers of Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI).
> 
> Now, given the kind of computing I have been doing for the past sixteen
> years, I would expect that I should have some sign of RSI by now.  But
> d'ya know something?  I don't.  My fingers can break-dance, and my wrists
> don't care at all one bit.  
> 
> A few weeks ago, I had a marathon session (total of about nine hours) on a
> Macintosh and on my GS.  I was retouching photographs on the Mac so that I
> could include them in a GraphicWriter III document, so I was doing some
> extensive mousing with both the Mac and the IIgs.  Okay, so no problem. 
> 
> Yesterday, I spent about 90 minutes on a PC, running Corel PhotoPaint with
> a Microsoft "ergonomic" mouse, retouching scanned logos that I wanted
> to use with our video character generator (Chyron pc-CODI, if that
> means anything to you).  By the time I went home, I could scarcely move my
> hand.  In fact, it still hurts a little.
> 
> Now I begin to put 2+2 together, and realize something that we've known
> all along.  I have been typing, mostly on computers, for about sixteen
> years.  In that time, my computer use has been almost (but not
> quite) exclusevely Apple ][.
> 
> Our Apples are better designed than "standard" PC's.  Real keyswitches,
> sculpted keys with good spacing, a minimal (or in the case of the GS,
> absent) space between the edge of the case and the front of the keyboard,
> a mouse small enough to actually hold, that doesn't try to conform your
> fingers to it...I think all of that, though it makes the Apple keyboards
> and mice look puny compared to the 104-key behemoths and gigantic mice in
> the PC world, probably does my hands and wrists far more good than all the
> split keyboards, gel-filled wrist-rests (how can people type with those
> damned things?) and other so-called "ergonomic" features put together. 
> 
> It is only a theory at this point...But I have to wonder...typewriters
> have been around for ages, and so have word processors.  But most of us
> had never even heard of "carpal tunnel syndrome" (or thought it had
> something to do with clogged sewer pipes) before the rise of the
> PC...in fact, it really wasn't until the inexpensive PC clones, with their
> membrane keyboards arrived, that we started to hear about these RSI problems.
> 
> I just think it is interesting.  Anyone else have any thoughts?
> 
> --Dave Althoff, ][.
> -- 
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--bj
Proudly owning/using Apple Computers since 1984
Barbie and Ken doll fan since 1961
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