Digital Servo Systems' Foot ^Control
Discover Improved Hands-on Word Processor Editing with Foot ^Control
The Company
Digital Servo Systems was founded at the end of November 1983 in California. It was founded by Dennis M. Pfister, Kenneth C. Goss, and Jeffery J. Robinson. Based on the California Secretary of State records, the company was dissolved in March of 1986. That’s the extent of the information I could find.
Dennis M. Pfister wrote an article for Byte magazine in 1984. The article included a short bio:
“Dennis M. Pfister…is MIS manager at TRW Inc. He holds a B.S. degree in mathematics/computer science and is interested in motion control, electronics, computers, and music.”
For the heck of it, I fed the names listed in the Articles of Incorporation into Google Patents. It didn’t return any patents related to the Foot Control. There were a bunch of cooling related patents authored by a Dennis M. Pfister of Sun Microsystems. It may not be the same person, but it is a very distinctive name.
The Product
I was unable to find any reviews of the Foot ^Control, but I did find something else. Remember that Byte article I mentioned above? It’s entitled “Foot ^Control” and describes how to add a foot-operated Control key to your keyboard.
Wordstar is a nice piece of software, but its nifty editing features are hampered because you must use too many simultaneous key strokes or control characters to implement the features. You generate them either by simultaneously pressing the Control key and a particular alphabetic character, by selecting from a group of additional keys with dedicated editing functions, or by using a mouse.
These methods work, but they all have one serious deficiency: they require you to move your hands from the standard typing position. This is inefficient and provides you with more opportunity for error.
I thought that there must be a better way. I had done a considerable amount of commercial sewing, where a foot switch is used to free the operator’s hands, so I decided that this approach might be just the thing. This idea developed into what I have termed Foot ^Control, which is an inexpensive (less than $40) solution for relief from all those control characters.
I’m not sure why Pfister would write an article describing how to recreate a product he started selling the previous year. He must have loved the idea more than profits. I’ll have to ask him someday.
Did you ever use a Foot ^Control? Do you know anything about its history? Tell us about it in the comments below.
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The fact that Pfister published a DIY article for a product he was selling is wild by todays standards. In early tech culture there was this balance between entrepreneurial ambition and genuine enthusiasm for sharing knowledge that you just dont see anymore. I've thought about the foot control idea before when using vim - freeing up your hands by using your feet actually makes a lot of sense ergonomically.