The TrackPoint Topic

[pkamb]

A thread for discussion/appreciation of everyone's favorite ThinkPad pointing stick nub.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick



XKCD ALT: "I know a lot of people hate these, but I prefer them to touchpads."

[CeeSA]

I am not shure wether this fits the topic but
a "keyboard" life w/o trackpoints is unthinkable for me.

Trackpoint half.jpg (155.07 KiB) Viewed 6221 times

[Halvar]

Good topic! Where can I best cannibalize (or buy) one, and how to get it to work?

[bhtooefr]

The easiest one to cannibalize is the TrackPoint IV Keyboard, as (I think it's that one, anyway) it uses a completely physically separate controller for its TrackPoint. PS/2 attached, so if you've got a PS/2 mouse port, you can use it.

There's also this: http://sprintek.com/products/sk8702.aspx

And, I wonder what protocol they're using for the (USB-attached, with full drivers) TrackPoint on the previous ThinkPad USB keyboard. The current one is NOT fully configurable...

[Halvar]

Great info bhtooefr! I'll start to look out for that.

[pkamb]

Personally I use the ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint (model number 55Y9003 or SK-8855, circa 2009-2013).

Design:
http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/the-keyb ... ped-design

The TrackPoint and 3 buttons are *great*. I also love the Big Delete Key and Home/End PgUp/PgDn cluster, which I use all the time. Great programming keyboard. Perhaps anathema to mechanical keyboard types.



Photo by Masashi Nakano

I have also purchased but have yet to switch to the Japanese version of the same, which has a tiny spacebar to make room for many additional hotkey buttons. I'm not quite sure how I'll use them, yet.



Lenovo has unfortunately retired my keyboard in favor of a chiclet style keyboard, to match their newer ThinkPad laptops.

I will likely try this eventually, but am not looking forward to "normal" Delete cluster compared to the old version. TrackPoint still looks good though.

A good review of the new keyboard and the old:
http://www.jessebandersen.com/2013/12/l ... oards.html



And more great photos:
http://benjaminhorn.io/post/thinkpad-co ... rackpoint/

[bhtooefr]

It's worth noting that the keyboard you use now has the fully tunable TrackPoint drivers that ThinkPads use, whereas the new keyboard has much simpler drivers that, as far as I know, don't offer adjustable sensitivity.

[Findecanor]

I am not shure wether this fits the topic but
a "keyboard" life w/o trackpoints is unthinkable for me.

Trackpoint half.jpg

The orange keys are mouse buttons?

[davkol]

derp

[jlwinkler]

Hey,
I would like to build a trackpoint into the Microsoft Slupt ergonomic keaboard.
Does anyone have a recommendation on what I need and where to get all that stuff?
I do not want to wire the trackpoint up with the electronics of the keyboard and I will be fine with a USB-cable solution in the end because I will not move the keyboard in my table too much in the end.
Thanks a lot in advance for every piece of input!
Cheers, JL

[CeeSA]

The orange keys are mouse buttons?

yes, you are right.