Best other input device 2013

[The Keyboard Oracle]

The nominees in the category Best other input device 2013 are:

IBM TrackPoint • The IBM TrackPoint is a pointing stick which first featured on the IBM Model M13, and is still used on IBM Thinkpads and some IBM rubber dome keyboards.

Kinect • Kinect is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console and Windows PCs, enabling users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller.

Oculus Rift • The Oculus Rift is an upcoming virtual reality head-mounted display. The Oculus Rift is currently taking dev kit preorders.

RollerMouse Free2 • The RollerMouse is an alternative graphical pointer input device to replace the traditional mouse, produced by Contour Design.

Steam Controller • The Steam Controller is a gamepad with dual high-resolution clickable trackpads, haptics, touch screen and sixteen buttons.

And the Wingnut for Best other input device 2013, as voted for by the members of deskthority, goes to...

Spoiler:

The IBM TrackPoint is a pointing stick which first featured on the IBM Model M13, and is still used on IBM Thinkpads and some IBM rubber dome keyboards.


Different IBM TrackPoint cap styles and colors.

[mr_a500]

Ug. I probably should have voted on this one - anything but the trackpoint. I was forced to use one and I absolutely hated it. It was the worst pointing device I ever used.

[bhtooefr]

Ug. I probably should have voted on this one - anything but the trackpoint. I was forced to use one and I absolutely hated it. It was the worst pointing device I ever used.

The trick is crank up the speed and sensitivity, then it becomes quite nice to use.

[Muirium]

Well, it was the first pointing device I ever used on a laptop, and I quite liked it at first. I can see why some people love them. But I wound up in your boat too. A500, after enough overshoots.

[7bit]

I'm quite sure I will start to like it when I find out how to make it register clicks....

[webwit]

It depends on the trackpoint version... the early ones are great.

[suka]

I'm quite sure I will start to like it when I find out how to make it register clicks....

The trackpoint documentation (YKT3Eext.pdf) is pretty good and contains good pointers to the registers used. I found my two models easy to set-up for the "Press to Select" mode, but the larger one wasn't reliably registering for some reason I never tracked down. I haven't used that feature for clicks, but rather to emulate the two missing scroll wheels, and that is working remarkably well.

From tp_init() :

Code: Select all

// setup PressToSroll by enabling PTS, setting button masks and increasing threshold
tp_ram_toggle(0x2c, (1<<TP_PTS) );
tp_ram_write(0x41, 0xff); // btn mask 
tp_ram_write(0x42, 0xff); // btn mask
tp_ram_write(0x5c, 0x0A); // PTS threshold 08 is default, 10 too hard

[bhtooefr]

Press to Select is the one thing that IBM's TrackPoints get massively wrong, IMO.

Interestingly, I'm not finding it to be that bad on my company-issued Latitude E6430. Older Dells, though, had it on by default, and it was horrible! (Disclosure: I work for Dell. I don't have anything to do with marketing. I just fix the things and install them for end users at my client's facility.)