Disable laptop touchpad

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 01 February 2010, Bruce Marshall wrote:
>On Monday 01 February 2010, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> It probably does, but its depth of undo may also be limited.  I can
>>  usually  fix my typu's without needing that, so it use isn't second
>>  nature.  And then of course someone here, reading this is bound to quote
>>  that old saw about old dogs & new tricks.  Shrug.  I've been using vi,
>> or a clone of it, for at least 30 years.
>
>I know just enough vi to know how to use it when I have to.   But ditch it
> at the first opportunity....
>
>I'm 71 but have been working with computers all my 48 years of working
> life.
>
Your computer history goes back farther than mine then.

I cut my first code on an 8 bitter, the RCA 1802, in 78-79 while the ACE at a 
northern Kalifornia tv station.  I guess it must have stood the test of time 
because it was still in use when I was a dozen years down the road as the CE 
of a WV CBS affiliate (WDTV) when I last checked.  I started out fixing the 
neighbors tv's in '49, got tired of consumer electronics customer backlash 
and switched to broadcasting in the early 60's, but did have an unusual 
experience in '60.  I'd hired on as a bench tech at a little startup down on 
Mission Bay that was fine tuning a small tv camera, much smaller than 
anything on the market at the time, 2.5" in diameter, about 13" long, using 
what was then a state of the art 7735A 1" vidicon tube. The idea was to lease 
it to municipalities to be towed through sewers for inspection purposes.  We 
had the 1st one almost working but parts were sticking out of it on long 
leads when about 8:30 Monday morning a bunch of gold and silver from the Navy 
walked in.  They asked how it did in low light, so we cleared a spot to lay 
it in one of the bench drawers, did, and closed the drawer on the rg59 it was 
running on.  A couple seconds for the autotarget to react and we were looking 
at the grain pattern of the plywood back panel of the drawer at nearly full 
brightness on the monitor.  "Sold, when can we have 2 of those, and BTW, 
here's the plans for a pressure case and we will furnish the quartz windows 
for them."  Those two cameras were on the Trieste when it went down in the 
mohole in Feb. '61, and unlike the Trieste, worked flawlessly.  So I can 
claim to have had fingerprints in both of those cameras that went a little 
over 37k feet deep in the Marianas Trench, 49 years ago this month.  You can 
look that up on wikipedia.  Unforch, we had no compact digital image storage 
back then, so the pictures you saw in the encyclopedias were shot with small 
film cameras from the monitor screens.  Not really hi-def, but those are the 
only pictures from the mohole that exist, we've never been back to it.

Yup, by almost pure serendipity I've had other unique experiences.  Its been 
one hell of a ride, but this train seems to be slowing down as the conductor 
keeps eying my ticket. Being diabetic for the last 15 years, my warranty has 
long since expired, but except for 3 times in my life, its been a great ride.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Your boss climbed the corporate ladder, wrong by wrong.