European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 12, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Erma Bombeck to Mim a 19 1 in Mot a me fun to or  of like Ife Cathy he he  ," 4 Hrom fim a Tessa and High/1 Suffis a a Vij " of a j-tv ii a is tax Frosi a eur Narea it Bijj 7 -.,. Fusil in Feura Outh a fib Tiave him 3 3,.ffltohswmw it As 5s1? Urai  we 1191 Imiru Zubi win a. To  Confes Yob Nunt that i Dro Eji. Moluf i  a cd few Ria a a  "1"s.give you ring around the of a i Collar Leava toothpaste in the sink or. " r snore. The and said he is used by police. Departments in More jhan.,20 Spates so Ghe can g Al steady work and he never a a whities about benefits or changes his s " it it might be Boring a. Stsibo swe is a Artrea ight ahead. Besides or,$500rdpnt Artther Man in the House in dust a a by " 6iweTbfffif 9- \ " a r if or ? i i Nice mice stories by Peter h. Lewis new York times he problem with mice the computer variety is that they need a relatively uncluttered chunk of desk space in which to roam As the user pushes the soap bar sic mouse around the desktop the cursor moves across the computer screen in a corresponding direction. We All know that uncluttered desk space docs not exist in real Lite no matter what the advertising photographs show. The mouse that lives on my desk has to be part Mountain Goat since in must hop Over stacks of news releases books manuals diskettes pens pencils Coffee cups and other obstacles. So we have Givon in to chaos and converted to trackballs a trackball in essentially a giant mouse lying on its Back it does no move and it takes up Only a Small amount of desk space about 5 inches by 6 inches yet in doors significant performance improvements Over the Irce is graphics Margii ranging mouse. Our favourites Are the Turbo mouse and its bran new Cousin the expert mouse both made by Kensington microwave of new York City. The  mouse Lor ism ps-2s and compatibles will be available in the United slates in Juno. A Price has not been set but a company spokesman said it would probably be $169.95, the same As the Turbo mouse. An expert mouse Lor ism pcs its and ats and compatibles will follow in August. On conventional mice a Small rubber Ball protrudes irom the mouse s belly. As the Ball Rolls Over the desktop sensors select its movement and Send signals to the computer through the mouse s Tail. With the Turbo mouse $179.95 for the Apple macintosh and expert mouse the user essentially rubs the mouse s belly rolling the Largo Ball about Iho size of a Cue Ball in Pool in its socket. Advanced optical sensors control the cursor with whal seems like a greater degree of accuracy than can be had using the conventional mice in our Soltice. That accuracy is important when doing detailed work with Aidus pacemaker aul cad or other programs that give Iho user control Over each individual Dot on the screen. The Kensington trackballs also have a Click lock feature that is Handy in applications that rely on Click and drag actions As in selecting a pull Down menu and choosing an Ilem in contains. Turbo and expert mouses have two buttons one that functions just As a Clicker and another that locks the selection until it is released with a second Click. Clicking and dragging through Long blocks of text is Well a drag. With Turbo mouse s Click lock. Ii is easier. There is one minor annoyance Wilh the Turbo mouse i have been using although not one that would persuade me to return to conventional mice. The trackball lends to hop in its Crater when in is moved Loo quickly sort of like a Par spinning its wheels and the cursor goes nowhere. The Nice thing is thai in we wanted to return to a regular mouse we can do so without disconnecting the Turbo mouse. The Turbo has connection sockets on both sides allowing in to be placed on either Side of the keyboard a Laturo beloved by left handed users. Either Way the other port can be used Lor a mouse. The Only time to Hook up the old rodent is to play Crystal quest which just seems to work bettor with the mouse. Crystal quest is another of those addictive macintosh game that we keep in the Backol the close nol to hide it from the kids but to minimize the temptation to play in. The program costs $49.95, and in is available irom Cassidy & Greene inc. The rules Are fairly simple. Using the mouse the player guides a Little spaceship through a universe containing crystals which Are Good and alien critters which Are bad. The goal is to gobble Upas Many crystals As possible earning Points Beloro being obliterated by a Critter. Scanner magic scanners often transform the thinking Altheir users As quickly As they transform paper documents. Some people move from i can t imagine Why i would Ever want on of these things to i can t imagine How i la Ever again get by without one in a matter of minutes scanners Are devices that convert printed pictures documents and other images into a digital form that the computer can store display and manipulate once expensive curiosities used in very specialized applications today they Are increasingly common As peripherals to desktop computers. Although scanners Are most commonly used for desktop publishing they also Are being used for graphic design for preparing documents for pc facsimile transmission and for converting paper documents to electronic form. With optical character recognition or software those scanned images can be converted to text files that can be edited with a word processor. Good desktop scanners Are not cheap except in contrast to what they used to Cost. Desktop scanners with advanced Gray scale capabilities which produce More accurate images of photographs and illustrations with shades of Gray Are now available in Iho United states Tor $1,000 to $4,000. Line Art scanners Are less complicated an therefore less costly Wilh Many models available for less than $1,000.hand-held scanners Are available for $200 or less. They Are suitable for scanning company logos signatures clip Art for desktop publishing and other Small images primarily composed of lines. Because the scanners Are hand held they can also capture images from to shirts wallpaper or almost anything else. One new hand held scanner the lightning scan for Apple macintosh at a list Price of $549 from Thunder Are inc., can produce Gray scale images when attached to a Mac ii. For those who want to capture color images color scanners Are no available for $5,000 to $10,000. However the Lack of cheap High Resolution color printers limits their usefulness for most pc users. To take full advantage of the capabilities of the scanners Many people use them with powerful computers with at least a megabyte of random Access memory ram High Resolution laser or in Jet printers big hard disks for storing graphic images and a High Resolution Gray scale Monitor and video cards., " Apple macintosh owners especially those with Mac us can move Inlo the scanning world with relative. Page 16 the stars and stripes saturday August 12,1989