Muscle Memory

johnrpjohnrp
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Isn?t it strange how quickly we gain muscle memory (and lose it).



I finally made the big leap to 100% OSX about 2 months ago, at first I was all over the place with shortcuts and menus. Having the extra (finder) menu in the menubar to deal with and the amazingly annoying ?SHIFT-APPLE-N? for a new folder for example.



In the two months I have learnt to cope with these new tricks and now no longer think anything about using them apart from ?SHIFT-APPLE-N?.



Imagine my surprise when I was working on a friends Mac (os9) and I was once again all over the place, Amazing I knew 9 like the back of my hand but things didn?t open, menu?s were not there. Arghh has my brain listened to Steve Jobs proclaim os9 dead and begun to erase it?s existence? :confused:



How quickly we forget



Long live X and long live the warm feeling of nostalgia I now get every time I ?APPLE-N? wanting a new folder and instead get a new window.

<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    I have the same problem. I haven't touched OS 9 for about 2 months until yesterday when I was forced to boot into it in order to use some emulation software. I kept looking around for the dock and getting confused with the menu layouts.



    Hopefully I never have to do that again.



    <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
  • Reply 2 of 4
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Yeah, muscle memory is an important part of everyday life, from brushing your teeth to driving your car. But while humans are creatures of habit, they're also incredibly adaptable. I'm kind of amazed I don't fall into Windows habits on my Mac after sitting behind a PC for 12 hours. Seems like muscle memory is only a part of it. We seem to have an even stronger contextual memory.



    But as long as we think that we're working on our Macs, we have a harder time changing contexts, and that's when our muscle memory betrays us. It's one thing to expect that in the switch to OS X, it's another phenomena if you're switching back after a while. I fall prey to the same thing when I jump into OS 9 once in a blue moon.



    [ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 4
    kaboomkaboom Posts: 286member
    I keep my dock on the left side of the screen and when I'm in 9 I tend to slam my cursor there to access my dock. Then I wonder why nothing is happening
  • Reply 4 of 4
    enderender Posts: 353member
    How's this for muscle memory:



    I use the standard (QWERTY) keyboard layout on my desktop, and the <a href="http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/layout.html"; target="_blank">Dvorak</a> keyboard layout on my laptop (usually sitting right next to my tower and all I have to do is swivel my chair).



    I use QWERTY on my tower because that's where I do my coding (Java, HTML, etc) and it's kinda annoying to code using Dvorak. I use Dvorak on my laptop because I use it to chat, surf the web, other activities requiring mostly-english keyboard input.



    I can switch back and forth seamlessly and never have to think about which layout I'm on, often I switch back and forth a couple times per minute (make some changes to a webpage, switch and view the page, switch back make more changes, switch and view...).



    As a test, one day I reversed my layouts (Dvorak on the tower, QWERTY on the laptop). I couldn't function at all. Everything I wrote was gibberish. I figure it must be muscle memory associated with the feel of the keyboard, or at least the placement of the machine.



    &lt;plug&gt;

    Young people with many years of computing ahead: learn Dvorak. It's the nicest thing you can do for your hands. It takes a week of frustration (a couple hours learning Dvorak and you won't be able to type in either QWERTY or Dvorak ), but after you gain speed, Dvorak is the way to go unless you type lots of {} [] + or = (i.e.: Java or other programming).



    I only have a problem with it in HTML because I tend to type my tags in all UPPERCASE by holding one of the shift keys down with one hand, making either most of the vowels or the most common consonants very awkward to reach. The &lt; and &gt; keys are still convenient.

    &lt;/plug&gt;



    -Ender
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