Dismal is a spreadsheet that works within the GNU Emacs editor, a widely available programmable editor. Dismal has three particular features of interest to those interested in studying behavior: (a) the ability to manipulate and align sequential data, (b) an open architecture that allows users to expand it to meet their particular needs, and (c) an instrumented and accessible interface for studies of human-computer interaction (HCI). Example uses of these capabilities are provided including two

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... cognitive models that have had their behavior aligned with protocols, extensions useful for teaching and doing HCI design, and studies using keystroke logs from the timing package in Dismal. Dismal is distributed with the help of the Free Software Foundation.