84 Computer Health Break (commercial software)
Description
This article is from the Ergonomics and Typing Injury FAQ, by Dan Wallach dwallach@cs.princeton.edu with numerous contributions by others.
84 Computer Health Break (commercial software)
Available from
Escape Ergonomics, Inc
1111 W. El Camino Real
Suite 109
Mailstop 403
Sunnyvale, CA
Phone
408-730-8410
Platforms
DOS
Cost
$79.95; quantity discounts, site licenses.
Aimed at preventing RSI, this program warns you to take breaks after a
configurable interval, based on clock time, or after a set number of
keystrokes - whichever is earlier. It gives you 3 exercises to do each
time, randomly selected from a set of 70. Exercises are apparently tuned
to the type of work you do - data entry, word processing, information
processing. Exercises are illustrated and include quite a lot of text on
how to do the exercise and on what exactly the exercise does.
CHB includes hypertext information on RSI that you can use to learn more
about RSI and how to prevent it. Other information on non-RSI topics can
be plugged into this hypertext viewer. A full glossary of medical terms
and jargon is included.
CHB can be run in a DOS box under Windows, but does not then warn you when
to take a break; it does not therefore appear useful when used with
Windows.
Comments
The keystroke-counting approach looks good: it seems better to
measure the activity that is causing you problems than to measure
clock time or even typing time. The marketing stuff is very good and
includes some summaries of research papers, as well as lots of
arguments you can use to get your company to pay up for RSI
management tools.
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