PART 3

• TOUCHPAD small touch sensitive tablets • ‘stroke’ to move mouse pointer • used mainly in laptop computers • good ‘acceleration’ settings important
• TRACKBALL • ball is rotated inside static housing • very fast for gaming
• THUMBWHEELS • for accurate CAD – two dials for X-Y cursor position • for fast scrolling – single dial on mouse
• JOYSTICK • often used for computer games: aircraft controls and 3D navigation
• KEYBOARD NIPPLE • miniature joystick in the middle of the keyboard for laptop computers
• TOUCH-SENSITIVE SCREEN

  • direct pointing device • Detect the presence of finger or stylus on the screen.
• STYLUS • small pen-like pointer to draw directly on screen • used in PDA, tablets PCs and drawing tables
• LIGHT PEN • uses light from screen to detect location • now rarely used
• EYEGAZE control interface by eye gaze direction (uses laser beam reflected off by retina) Potential for hands free control
• CURSOR KEYS Four keys (up, down, left, right) on keyboard. • Very, very cheap, but slow. • Useful for not much more than basic motion for text-editing tasks.
• DISCRETE POSITIONING CONTROLS

  • in phones, TV controls etc. o cursor pads or mini-joysticks o discrete left-right, up-down o mainly for menu selection