21 ms·

The ThinkPad TrackPoint tried to build a better mouse (2020)

• modzu 4y ago
  we know the name it really goes by
• ano-ther 4y ago
  It is one of the things that keep me with Lenovo Thinkpads. Beats a trackpad by miles
• flobosg 4y ago
  Keeping my fingers close to the home row is, in my opinion, the TrackPoint’s killer feature.
• tylerag 4y ago
  Just realized that the trackpoint on my laptop is completely worn smooth. I've been using Thinkpads for 25 years, I doubt I could switch to anything else. First thing I do when getting a new laptop is to unplug the ribbon cable going to the touchpad. Can't accidently enable it when it's unplugged!
  • hatsunearu 4y ago
    You can get a replacement nipple for that.
    • webnrrd2k 4y ago
      Try a classic cat-tongue nipple. You can still get them via Amazon. It might not be your thing, but it's worth trying.
      • causality0 4y ago
        Those feel great hen they're brand new but they very quickly fill with debris. Even if you clean them regularly it doesn't take long to wear them smooth. The newer dimpled ones provide a much more consistent and durable experience.
        • naikrovek 4y ago
          yeah but they're worse. I need a way to bulk order the cat tongue/classic dome ones. they clog up but with 500 of them and an ultrasonic cleaner I bet they last a long time.
          • b112 4y ago
            they clog up but with 500 of them and an ultrasonic cleaner I bet they last a long time. I imagine you after a plague, or zombies, or war, in an enclave, 5 years later, panicking with only 2 spares left.
          • naikrovek 4y ago
            i found this but they’re $2.49 each in quantity of 100. seems very overpriced. http://www.trackcap.com/ http://www.trackcap.com/
      • paulrouget 4y ago
        Absolutely. That rubber is a little narrower and a little higher, and more grippy, making it a lot more easier to manipulate. That trackpoint + the good old thinkpad keyboard were, to me, the best experience ever. But thinkpad were always too hot, too big, and then they gave up on that amazing keyboard. Perfect thinkpad: - 4:3 screen - arm-based - touchpad-less, grippy-trackpoint - old-keyboard
  • Scalene2 4y ago
    The steps us nerds will take in order to get the experience we want are sometimes quite amusing.
  • TonyTrapp 4y ago
    Hint: You can typically disable the touchpad in the ThinkPad BIOS. No need to open the device!
• hatsunearu 4y ago
  Honestly, didn't really find the ergonomics of putting significant lateral force on my fingers. My fingers didn't feel like it was well constrained with lateral force applied to it.
  • saurik 4y ago
    I used a TrackPoint for years and I absolutely believe that I damaged the big joint in my index finger from the required lateral force of that input method.
    • naikrovek 4y ago
      you may be should have adjusted the sensitivity. only the slightest touch should get the cursor moving. and quick snaps across the screen are done in a fraction of a second, in my experience. trackpad people seem to love this process, which I have never understood: put finger down on trackpad. move finger. lift finger from trackpad. move finger. put finger down on trackpad. move finger more slowly to get some precision. lift finger from trackpad. tap trackpad once followed by tap and hold. move finger to edge of trackpad to very slowly continue to drag selection marker. etc. it's exhausting
      • horsawlarway 4y ago
        > trackpad people seem to love this process, which I have never understood I mean... Right back at you: you should have adjusted the sensitivity :P The trackpads on my laptops are set so that a single moderately quick swipe across the surface is more than enough to cover an entire 24inch 4k monitor's worth of movement. And no one on a modern trackpad (that I know of... I'm mid 30s) uses the "tap, tap again to hold" pattern. They click the button of the trackpad with a thumb (hold) and navigate using a finger while the button is held. It's mid 2020s, every trackpad shipped supports multipoint input. --- That said - a traditional mouse is still the hard winner in this category. No question. But I'd take mouse -> trackball -> trackpad -> trackpoint. My hands are large and the positioning of the nub is incredibly awkward and uncomfortable to use for any extended duration without moving my hands just like for a trackpad, and the nub doesn't allow real multipoint input or navigational gestures.
• glasss 4y ago
  I'm sorry, completely unrelated - Where can I buy a trackpoint? Or the closest standalone part that resembles it? If I can smash a trackpoint onto a mechanical keyboard I would love to.
  • seltzered_ 4y ago
    There's tons of places that talk about this, perhaps start here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrackPoint_Builders/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TrackPoint_Builders/
  • 70rd 4y ago
    Some folks over at r/ergomechkeyboards have done this (for example https://redd.it/yhioec https://redd.it/yhioec). Also probably worth checking out https://www.reddit.com/r/trackpoint_builders https://www.reddit.com/r/trackpoint_builders
  • kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    If scavenging, another option is scrollpoint mice. There are a lot of early models with balls that no one wants to use anymore.
  • 5- 4y ago
    no need to smash things: https://tex.com.tw/collections/keyboard https://tex.com.tw/collections/keyboard
    • geoka9 4y ago
      Typing this on a Tex Shinobi, I can't recommend this keyboard enough. Its Trackpoint is even better than a Thinkpad one. It's the original module with 2 improvements: the ability to adjust the nipple sensitivity from the keyboard and the large buttons which are actually full-blown keys with mechanical switches. It's also a very nice keyboard on its own. The keycap shape is unique and very nice to the touch, once you get used to it. I can even place the Shinobi directly on top of my Thinkpad's (X1C6) built-in keyboard so that I don't have to use the latter unless I'm traveling (and unwilling to bring the Shinobi along).
• geephroh 4y ago
  Ah, yes, my old ThinkPad TrackPoint. My heart said, "YES!," while my carpal tunnels said, "MERCY!"
• throwanem 4y ago
  I loved trackpoints and was a vocal aficionado - even had one of those Model Ms that had a trackpoint built in, the black ones - until I got my first laptop that had both a trackpoint and a touchpad. I've never had anything with a trackpoint since, nor wanted.
• kitsunesoba 4y ago
  I don't think that trackpoints are the best in every case, but they're hard to beat in situations where space is at a premium and you don't have the space to properly operate a trackpad or mouse (e.g. airliner seats). So personally, I find them of more value in an ultraportable than I do something bigger and more performance-oriented. They're also pretty great for controlling a computer from the couch, way way better than the horrifically bad trackpads found in most keyboards made for entertainment center usage. For this reason I have a ThinkPad Keyboard II hooked up to my living room PC, and as a bonus the keyboard's switch between Bluetooth and an RF dongle makes it easy to switch over to a PS5 with the dongle plugged in for the odd occasion where it's useful to be able to type on it.
  • Sakos 4y ago
    I'd say the best part of the trackpoint is not having to move a hand away from my keyboard. I might still have a mouse connected, but 90% of the time I'll still prefer the trackpoint because of how convenient it is. Even on devices with a trackpad too, I'd primarily use the trackpoint unless I needed something like easy scrolling or quick swiping.
    • kitsunesoba 4y ago
      This isn’t something I’ve been able to judge too well, because ever since I started working as a dev over 90% of my serious typing has been docked with a mech board and trackball. Some time in the coming months I’ll be receiving the TEX Shura[0] (and more precisely, the DIY variant[1]) I preordered a few months ago which will let me see how well a trackpoint meshes with my desk setup. [0]: https://tex.com.tw/products/shura?variant=42840179409051 https://tex.com.tw/products/shura?variant=42840179409051 [1]: https://tex.com.tw/products/shura-diy-type?variant=42845035331739 https://tex.com.tw/products/shura-diy-type?variant=428450353...
      • Sakos 4y ago
        Since I don't use a trackpoint-equipped laptop anymore (couldn't resist the M1 Macbook), I've since switched to a Contour Rollermouse Red (mouse) and Kinesis Freestyle 2 (ergonomic keyboard). The mouse basically fills the same role of allowing me to keep my hands at the keyboard while also being extremely comfortable to use long-term and as precise and easy to use as any mouse. The Shura looks really cool though, thanks. I might get one.
• qooiii2 4y ago
  A company I worked at had one of the guys behind the TrackPoint come in and give a technical talk once. He was great, absolutely obsessed with building a great user experience. The amount of thought and testing that went into that little nub was incredibly impressive. I'm not surprised that people love it so much. Touchpads have a hard time competing on user experience because they need to be physically large to work well, and that's expensive.
• allanrbo 4y ago
  When working on a shaky commuter bus, it's much easier to be precise with a trackpoint than a trackpad.
• garciansmith 4y ago
  I had the (mis?)fortune of receiving a hand-me-down ThinkPad 10 or so years ago. Now I simply can't use a laptop for an extended period of time without a trackpoint. I always feel like my options for newer laptops are limited because of this, forever tied to Lenovo. I tried a Dell one once but it just didn't feel right. Being right in the middle of home row is so nice. I've now even use a modifier key to make home row keys become arrows/home/end/PgUp/PgDn, so my hands never have to reach far for anything at all. A few people here have noted problems with the amount of force needed to use the trackpoint, but I wonder if that's a problem of either settings or wear since I barely need to nudge mine to do everything I want it to do. They do seem to require significantly more pressure to use as the rubber cover wears out, otherwise your finger slips off. You might not even notice it, but do yourself a favor and get a pack of replacements for a few dollars on ebay or wherever, new ones feel so nice!
  • ghaff 4y ago
    I used to care a lot more. I simply couldn't use a trackpad at first and I wasn't even thrilled with a big Alienware Windows laptop I got a number of years back. I had to have a trackpoint on a laptop. But trackpads on Macs and Chromebooks became fine for me and I didn't really care after some point. Don't even use a mouse when I'm using a laptop basically as a desktop.
  • aconbere 4y ago
    For me this has nothing to do with wear on the nub itself. I’ve used a few trackpoints and it always ends with pain in my index fingers
  • neilv 4y ago
    If anyone is getting typing/mousing soreness--- 1. Stop. Don't type/mouse through pain, or you could be causing permanent damage. Figure out what the problem is, maybe with the help or a doctor and/or workstation ergonomics expert. 2. If TrackPoint is involved, that's possible, but I find it's mostly a win, but the win might depend on how one uses it. I use little force, and have done it all day for 20 years, without problem. The sensitivity is adjustable. Which cap you put on it makes a big difference. There are 5+ different caps. I like the soft concave top one best. With some of the other styles of cap, especially early on (like the hard sandpaper one, and the slick Toshiba(?) one), I found I was pressing much harder, just to get a grip on it.
• danielodievich 4y ago
  The best benefit is indeed not taking hands off main keys on the keyboard to move around. Old Toshiba Tecra's trackpoints were notorious for their drifting into some direction after they've been used for a while, some sort of sensor preference. The ones on P and T lines of Thinkpads are totally the only way to go. I swear by mine on my old P50 workhorse, but alas, my new work laptop doesn't have one. Another challenge is not misplacing the extra nubbins that came with this back 6 years ago...
• tambourine_man 4y ago
  How is the trackpoint support in Linux? Is it like most trackpads, a little worse than the Windows driver?
  • rolenthedeep 4y ago
    I've been using Linux on my old thinkpad for a very long time and I've never had to look at TrackPoint settings. It just works. Looking now, the trackpoint shows up as a generic mouse. No special settings or anything. So yeah, on par with windows.
    • jaredhallen 4y ago
      Same. I've run a lot of Linux on a lot of ThinkPads, and never had to think about the track point once.
  • smegsicle 4y ago
    you might need a few xinput lines to enable middleclick mouse emulation
  • berbec 4y ago
    for left and right clicks, it just works. the middle button may require some tomfoolery, but it's a solved problem. [1] 1: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_configure_the_TrackPoint https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_configure_the_TrackPoi...
  • kramerger 4y ago
    Works out of the box and better than on Windows. The mid button and scrolling works as intended on Ubuntu, unlike win10 that needs special attention.
• adverbly 4y ago
  I love the idea of being able to move your mouse cursor without moving your hand off of the keyboard. I just don't think that the trackpoint was fast and accurate enough to pull it off. I want to see someone try out a solution where each key on a keyboard gets a dedicated sensor, and you can have one hand/thumb press a magic "activate mouse" button, while the other hand basically runs across the keys just like you would use a touchpad. For bonus accuracy, you could sum/aggregate the movement of all fingers for the single pointer so that you can avoid lifting even any part of your hand.
  • bogwog 4y ago
    The Blackberry Passport had a capacitive keyboard which you could swipe your fingers on to scroll without touching the screen. This was extra useful in landscape mode since it maximized vertical scrolling space. The feel of scrolling on the bumpy keys was awesome. I don’t think that would work as well on a larger keyboard, especially mechanical ones, or ones where there is a lot of space between keys.
    • Findecanor 4y ago
      > I don’t think that would work as well [...] where there is a lot of space between keys. A capacitive "touch sensor" is pretty much the same as a proximity sensor, just tuned to the touch surface, so I don't think that could be much of a problem. Just put the sensor plane behind the keys. BTW, I've seen a keyboard prototype that used capacitive sensing of the user's fingertips as the key-actuation method. By doing that, the trackpad/keyboard might be even simpler.
      • bogwog 4y ago
        Yeah but the keys/switches themselves could become damaged by pushing them side to side. Maybe on a low height keyboard on a laptop it’s less of a problem, but trying to swipe my fingers across my mechanical keyboard and my X1 Yoga keyboard definitely feels like I’m going to break something. The BB Passport had almost no gaps between the keys, so it felt like a continuous, slightly bumpy surface. I don’t think that’d work well on a larger form factor, but maybe I’m wrong.
• cpsns 4y ago
  I love them, but don’t think they’ve held up over time. This is subjective, but they just don’t feel right on modern, wide, high resolution displays. The acceleration always feels wrong and UI elements have gotten smaller or nearly vanished. Trying to position a trackpoint to resize a window is maddening these days. Back on the old Toshiba Satellites in the Win 9x days though? They felt just right, a solution that truly fit the computer and UI of the era. That all said I still prefer them over virtually every touchpad.
• collectordrx 4y ago
  Obligatory XKCD. https://xkcd.com/243/ https://xkcd.com/243/ Note: link may be considered risky for work.
• pestatije 4y ago
  Cannot deal with its inaccurate method...the trackpad gives position control whereas a trackpoint gives speed or even acceleration control and that's not what I want... ideally you want to mimic a touchscreen and the trackpoint is the furthest you can have from that, barring arrow keys
  • dragoncrab 4y ago
    Even when I'm at home with a mouse, I tend to fall back to the trackpoint to adjust sliders or pick colours precisely in Lightroom. Trackpoints on my Thinkpad give superior position control to everything tried from Mac trackpad to digital tables. The only drawback is that moving the cursor across 3 screens is way too slow using the trackpoint.
• LarryMullins 4y ago
  Not to brag, but I used to be pretty good at Quake with a trackpoint. Not as good as with a real mouse, but trackpoints work reasonably well for first person games. Better than a touchpad for sure.
• c3534l 4y ago
  IMHO, the nub is great when your screen is small and you still mostly interact with the computer by typing. On large screens, you have to choose between having an extremely fiddly pointer or an infuriatingly slow one. I wouldn't mind a nub on a truely tiny computer, but nowadays something that small would have a touchscreen. I'd classify this as great for its time and an occasionally a nice, but inessential feature on a laptop today.
  • nortonham 4y ago
    yeah agreed, they're great on laptops, like the X and T series thinkpads.
• JoshTriplett 4y ago
  I used to really insist on the trackpoint. Now, I feel like the best part of the trackpoint is "laptops with a trackpoint also have physical mouse buttons". I'm fine with a trackpad, but physical mouse buttons are a hard requirement for me on any laptop.
  • D13Fd 4y ago
    Out of curiosity, have you tried the Apple ones? After years of using the button-less trackpad that simulates clicks with vibrations, ones with buttons just seem weird.
    • kiwijamo 4y ago
      I have tried the Apple ones a few times and every time I go back to a laptop that has physical buttons it just feels so much better. I also find I get much less cramping in my fingers too.
    • JoshTriplett 4y ago
      I have, and I really can't stand them. I regularly use right-click and middle-click, as well as click-and-drag, and I find the substitutes for those on a buttonless touchpad quite uncomfortable.
  • nkurz 4y ago
    I've also converted from Trackpoint to trackpad over the years. My solution for "physical mouse buttons" on a Mac laptop involves mapping Caps Lock (left pinky) to Left Click, and Right Option (right pinky) to Right Click. With Karabiner, this is easy and works perfectly for my needs. I typically Tap to Click on the trackpad for following links and the like, but always hold down Caps Lock for click and drag (which I find very uncomfortable otherwise). If you are otherwise interested in Mac hardware, you might like it too.
• jmclnx 4y ago
  If it does not have a trackpoint, I will never bye in. (period). And the opter requirement is to fully disable the touchpad.
• elihu 4y ago
  I think a great option if we really want to build a better mouse is to replace the scroll wheel with something TrackPoint-like. Scroll wheels are a ridiculous interface that we tolerate because they're useful, but if we had a better alternative I think they'd quickly go extinct and no one would miss them. The problem with scroll wheels is that you end up scrolling up and down in a jerky fashion because you have to reposition your finger constantly. With a TrackPoint style control, or something like the spring-loaded pitch-bend wheel on most MIDI keyboards, you don't have to reposition your finger and can just scroll. I haven't investigated what's involved in building a custom mouse these days, but it's kind of tempting.
  • wintermutestwin 4y ago
    >something like the spring-loaded pitch-bend wheel on most MIDI keyboards That's a great idea! It would also have usable clicking, unlike today's scroll wheels where clicking ends up moving the scroll wheel or not clicking way too often.
    • elihu 4y ago
      I haven't had an issue with the scroll wheel clicker, or have any particular idea to improve upon it, unless one were to do away with the clicker entirely in favor of thumb buttons or maybe putting an extra button next to the scroll wheel instead of having the scroll wheel be the button.
    • omegabravo 4y ago
      There was one in the MX Revolution mouse (the one before the MX Master). The thumb wheel was spring loaded. I prefer the free spinning MX Master thumb wheel. Having said that I've never enjoyed a trackpoint either, so I expect others would prefer it.
  • utopcell 4y ago
    You must not have used any of logitech's MX mice. I don't remember the last time I had to constantly reposition my finger on the wheel to scroll.
• khqc 4y ago
  completely anecdotal, but when Diablo 2 resurrected came out I went on a 2-day binge, 16 hours a day. A couple hours into the first day I was already feeling pain in my mouse hand, but after switching to trackpoint I had zero issues grinding for the next 2 days.
• xgdgsc 4y ago
  thinkpad 0b47190 is available if you want to try
• lolive 4y ago
  I don't have a trackpoint on my keyboard. So I use warpd [1] for pointing at a location on the screen with key combinations. It is really convenient, once your brain has rewired to this way of clicking. Still have to use the (real) mouse when dealing with drag'n drop or selection, though. [1]: https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd
  • BiggsHoson 4y ago
    That is intriguing. Anyone know of an equivalent for Windows?
    • Sakos 4y ago
      There was this post last year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33221901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33221901 Haven't looked through the comments, but there are a lot of them. Maybe there's something there. I think the idea is brilliant too and wish I'd found this earlier.
      • lolive 4y ago
        Just had a quick look and highlighted those 2 ones: - https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse - https://github.com/GavinPen/AhkCoordGrid https://github.com/GavinPen/AhkCoordGrid (based on AutoHotKey)
• drfuchs 4y ago
  The article fails to credit the inimitable Ted Selker with the invention and development of the TrackPoint. Shame!
• crotho 4y ago
  [dead]
• jasoneckert 4y ago
  For decades I thought the TrackPoint was a cumbersome tool that couldn't possibly replace a mouse. But about 5 years ago, I just decided to start using it when wasting time browsing the web and got very very good at using it for navigation once I increased the sensitivity and practiced for a bit. Today, it's the only navigation method I use on my laptop and desktop (via a TrackPoint II Bluetooth keyboard: https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyboards-and-mice/keyboards/4y40x49493 https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyb...).
  • yukIttEft 4y ago
    You have no drift issues? After ~6months of using it on my new Thinkpad, it starts to drift almost immediately. Its a pity because it liked it a lot.
    • jasoneckert 4y ago
      None whatsoever.
• berjin 4y ago
  Apple seem to smash every other brand when it comes to laptop mouse input. The size of the Macbook track pads is incredible. They really 'get' it whereas all the other manufacturers have tiny afterthought pads and my fingers touch the edge before I can finish a gesture. I have a Thinkpad at home too but I never use the nub.
  • moeris 4y ago
    I never get all the Apple fanboy love for their trackpads. They're okay, but ultimately they are still trackpads. They still erroneously track input when you brush against them the wrong way. I prefer the Thinkpad trackpoint by far. (And an actual mouse is even better.)
    • jojobas 4y ago
      At this point Apple could make buttplugs and a HN post about the trackpoint would have some ecstatic comments about them.
    • aikinai 4y ago
      It's probably from people that switched to Macs back when there wasn't a single decent non-Apple trackpad and it was like jumping forward a decade in input experience. I assume there are some good non-Apple trackpads these days, but honestly wouldn't know for sure since I'm one of those people that switched back in the day and almost never use non-Macs now. So my default assumption will always be that non-Apple laptops all still come with tiny little non-responsive trackpads with bad texturing. For the palm rejection, I almost never have erroneous inputs, and I think that's true for most people. And it's not that I don't physically mistouch; I realized how important and active the filtering is one time when I was doing something weird with my laptop that disabled palm rejection (maybe using my MacBook as a Bluetooth input for another computer?) and it was basically unusable from all the erroneous inputs.
      • sublinear 4y ago
        Some designs literally sidestep the problem by just moving the trackpad to the side instead of keeping it below the keyboard. The Logitech K400 is very cheap and has exactly the kind of small and trashy touchpad you speak of, yet I never have unintentional touches or clicks with it.
• osteele 4y ago
  Ted Selker's description of the invention of the TrackPoint, as told to Bill Buxton, goes into a lot more detail about the path to product and the technical challenges overcome. https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60 https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60
  • rideontime 4y ago
    This guy rules
• jojobas 4y ago
  >The ThinkPad TrackPoint tried to build a better mouse And so it did.
• sublinear 4y ago
  For the last decade I have shamelessly and exclusively used Logitech K400 keyboards for everything especially dev work. It's that wireless media keyboard with touchpad built in you see everywhere because of how cheap it is. I don't care that it's not clicky and mechanical or festooned with cheesy LEDs. I use vim all the time but use vscode more and work across different OS environments so I'm not anti-mouse, although since the pad is off to the side it's technically aligned with the home row :p Anyway this thing can't be beat.
• wraptile 4y ago
  Last year I got Shinobi Tex[1] - a mechanical keyboard with a trackpoint and it's so incredible good that I keep a spare for if it eventually breaks down. My hypothesis is that if an action feels more expensive than average we subconciously try to avoid it. In other words, if I need to move my wrist to the mouse/trackpad then I'll be subconciously avoiding this action or at least deprioritizing it. Reducing these statistical outliers creates a much more productive and ergonomic environment and Trackpoint and VIM-like programs are amazing tools to address this issue. 1 - https://tex.com.tw/products/shinobi https://tex.com.tw/products/shinobi
  • IE6 4y ago
    FYI - I love my shinobi too but they just released a new pre-order for the "Shura" which I am looking forward to :) https://tex.com.tw/products/shura?variant=42840179409051 https://tex.com.tw/products/shura?variant=42840179409051
  • berbec 4y ago
    The Lenovo Trackpoint Keyboard II[1] is the best, by several nautical miles, couch input device on the planet. 1: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyboards-and-mice/keyboards/4y40x49493 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyb...
    • wraptile 4y ago
      I actually upgraded from this one to Shinobi. I still take it on the road sometimes but it's not even close to the quality of Shinobi even if you take away the mechanical keys.
    • cl3misch 4y ago
      ...except you have to use the switched Fn-Ctrl keys. Or did I miss something? If I could switch them to normal layout (like you can in a Thinkpad's BIOS) I would have bought one years ago.
    • djtango 4y ago
      Have been trying to buy one of these in UK English layout but it has been unavailable for over a month at least. Anyone know what gives? https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyboards-and-mice/keyboards/4y40x49520 https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyb...
• rmrf100 4y ago
  looking forward that.
• berbec 4y ago
  "tried"? Trackpoint is vastly superior, for my fingers, to a touchpad. It makes mobile computer as close to desktop as possible. Without a TrackPoint, I need a mouse to get any serious computing done.
• gjvc 4y ago
  https://www.etsy.com/shop/SaotoTech https://www.etsy.com/shop/SaotoTech
• petodo 4y ago
  Unpopular opinion - as someone who uses only Thinkpads for last quarter century I think trackpoint is overrated, sure it was great when there was no touchpad, but I feel touchpad is much more intuitive and easier to control. The reason to go with thinkpads for me is keyboard (well at least in past, they are ruining it now with each update) and upgradability. As for headline - trackpoint was never replacement for mouse, it's just necessity while travelling, mouse is still superior if you have desk available. I thought this will be about some mouse improvements like vertical mouse.
• rcarmo 4y ago
  I used ThinkPads for so long that the TrackPoint gave me RSI - to this day, every time I use it for more than 5 minutes my index finger becomes painful to bend even slightly. It is still pretty great and intuitive to use, but these days I just use the trackpad and have to remind myself to not let my index finger linger there lest I start using the TrackPoint again.
• bigpeopleareold 4y ago
  I got used to the trackpoint like other less common input devices, believing there are strong merits to it. I don't use it as much, but I have also a logitech trackball I still occasionally use I bought back in 2008, rarely having used a mouse since then. I got it being worried about carpal tunnel issues. I still do like it, but I haven't used a desktop setup in a long time. Now, I use the trackpoint a lot for general pointing on my laptop with occasional use of the trackpad, because it is better for a lot things. I think having a couple of options is better than just one, because one or the other tends to be good at certain things that others aren't. Trackpoints simply are better at being closer to one's typing fingers, can do infinite scroll easily, is easier to access when the laptop is in slightly awkward positions. Setting the correct sensitivity makes it extremely comfortable to use. I tend to use trackpads when I am working on something quickly and my hands are floating in different places. It's also good for more casual cases for me, but otherwise nothing too serious. I can understand that no one will deliberately seek out to learn a device that has a bit of a learning curve to it, just like learning a better keyboard layout, but I am personally happy that I was mostly right being myself deliberate for these few things. The thought of going back to trackpad-only would be hard for me, because it's just not that good (so still hoping to see a framework laptop mod with a trackpoint :D ) FWIW: I helped setup a few 2019-era Macbook Pros at work, so I used them a little. The experience was not really that spectacular. Maybe I am biased - I sworn off of Macbooks years ago.
• dandongus 4y ago
  Apple's most basic multitouch trackpad (the one from 10+ years ago, prior to the haptic stuff, prior to the force touch stuff, prior to the massive dimensions) runs absolute circles around every other laptop pointing device to date, to the point where it's not even funny. Its only weak point is the 125hz sample rate. The big downside of the trackpoint is that it's more of a joystick replacement than a mouse replacement; more waiting around is required to get the cursor positioned where you want it, even with acceleration.
  • mouse_ 4y ago
    I find waiting around is ONLY necessary with acceleration enabled. In my opinion at least, acceleration ruins trackpoints. With no acceleration, one simply applies the correct amount of pressure and the cursor will be wherever it needs to be within a second or so.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• bunnie 4y ago
  I find trackpoints are more precise for CAD work. You can end a gesture with zero force precisely; but letting go of a mouse button inevitably has a tiny bit of positioning jitter. I use the track pad to scroll, and the trackpoint to draw.
• imiric 4y ago
  I'm a huge fan of the TrackPoint as well. Just wish for two things: - Fix the drift issue. It's infuriating that modern ThinkPads have the same issue machines from 20 years ago did. - Innovation. Related to the above, it's embarrassing that Lenovo hasn't improved the technology in seemingly any way. It's far from a perfect design, yet mechanically it's essentially the same device from 20 years ago. I concede that I haven't done a teardown to confirm this, but functionally and externally it appears to be the same. Make it more reliable, precise, sensitive, etc. Maybe add touch sensitivity to allow clicking, though this could easily register false positives, so it needs to be done right. I don't know... _something_ to improve IBM's design.
  • unregistereddev 4y ago
    > add touch sensitivity to allow clicking They did add this feature and it is wonderful. You can configure how hard a tap it takes to register a click.
    • imiric 4y ago
      Hhmm it seems this was present on some older models, but according to Reddit[1], it was apparently removed on newer models. Which model and OS are you using? I'm using a 2018 X1 Extreme and it's not supported in Linux by xf86-input-libinput. According to ArchWiki[2] there should be a `press_to_select` sysfs attribute, which doesn't exist on my system. [1]: https://teddit.net/r/thinkpad/comments/66ltor/ https://teddit.net/r/thinkpad/comments/66ltor/ [2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/TrackPoint https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/TrackPoint
• eternityforest 4y ago
  I've never tried one of these. They certainly look pretty interesting, maybe better than the trackpad, but I bring a Bluetooth mouse when I take my laptop places anyway.
• squarefoot 4y ago
  I may have an unpopular opinion of the trackpoint, but never managed to like or even adapt to it. I find the trackpad a lot more practical, also for very small movements: if I need to move just by a few pixels, all I have to do is just slowly rotating my finger in the desired direction while keeping it in contact with the trackpad surface. A trackpoint-ish input device may however be interesting if for example mounted on the side of the index finger of a half-glove-like haptic interface device so that it leaves most of the hand free but can be operated by the thumb when needed.
• klondike_klive 4y ago
  I'd love to use the trackpoint on my Thinkpad T440s but the trackpad has no separate buttons meaning I have to clunk the whole trackpad down to click, in terms of accuracy it's like bringing the thread to the needle then trying to bash it through the eye with a mallet.
• DonHopkins 4y ago
  I posted this about Ted Selker's dual-Trackpad Thinkpad prototype to an earlier discussion about multiple cursors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27222018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27222018 DonHopkins on May 20, 2021 | parent | next [–] Kudos to you for supporting multiple cursors from the start, which a buffer with a gap can't support efficiently. Douglas Englebart would have approved! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_real-time_editor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_real-time_editor >History of key products: The first instance of a collaborative real-time editor was demonstrated by Douglas Engelbart in 1968, in The Mother of All Demos. Widely available implementations of the concept took decades to appear. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21757797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21757797 Vis-à-vis mamelons, Ted Selker (who invented the Trackpoint) actually build a prototype Thinkpad keyboard with TWO Trackpoints, which he loved to show at his New Paradigms for Using Computers workshop at IBM Almaden Research Lab. While I'm not sure if this video of the 1995 New Paradigms for Using Computers workshop actually shows a dual-nippled Thinkpad, it does include a great talk by Doug Engelbart (14:22), and quite a few other interesting people! (James Gosling of Sun Microsystems talks about capabilities of Sun's new web browser HotJava, at 24:36! A classic!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD9NUWDCyHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD9NUWDCyHI The multi-Trackpoint keyboard was extremely approachable and attractive, and everybody who saw them instantly wanted to get their hands on them and try them out! (But you had to keep them away from babies.) He made a lot of different prototypes over time, but unfortunately IBM never shipped a Thinkpad with two nipples. That was because OS/2 (and every other contemporary operating system and window system and application) had no idea how to handle two cursors at the same time, so it would have required rewriting all the applications and gui toolkits and window systems from the ground up to support dual trackpoints. The failure to inherently support multiple cursors by default was one of Doug Engelbart's major disappointments about mainstream non-collaborative user interfaces, because collaboration was the whole point of NLS/Augment, so multiple cursors weren't a feature so much as a symptom. Bret Victor discussed it in a few words on Doug Engelbart that he wrote on the day of his death: http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/ http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/ >Say you bring up his 1968 demo on YouTube and watch a bit. At one point, the face of a remote collaborator, Bill Paxton, appears on screen, and Engelbart and Paxton have a conversation. >"Ah!", you say. "That's like Skype!" >Then, Engelbart and Paxton start simultaneously working with the document on the screen. >"Ah!", you say. "That's like screen sharing!" >No. It is not like screen sharing at all. >If you look closer, you'll notice that there are two individual mouse pointers. Engelbart and Paxton are each controlling their own pointer. >"Okay," you say, "so they have separate mouse pointers, and when we screen share today, we have to fight over a single pointer. That's a trivial detail; it's still basically the same thing." >No. It is not the same thing. At all. It misses the intent of the design, and for a research system, the intent matters most. >Engelbart's vision, from the beginning, was collaborative. His vision was people working together in a shared intellectual space. His entire system was designed around that intent. >From that perspective, separate pointers weren't a feature so much as a symptom. It was the only design that could have made any sense. It just fell out. The collaborators both have to point at information on the screen, in the same way that they would both point at information on a chalkboard. Obviously they need their own pointers. >Likewise, for every aspect of Engelbart's system. The entire system was designed around a clear intent. >Our screen sharing, on the other hand, is a bolted-on hack that doesn't alter the single-user design of our present computers. Our computers are fundamentally designed with a single-user assumption through-and-through, and simply mirroring a display remotely doesn't magically transform them into collaborative environments. >If you attempt to make sense of Engelbart's design by drawing correspondences to our present-day systems, you will miss the point, because our present-day systems do not embody Engelbart's intent. Engelbart hated our present-day systems. bombcar on May 20, 2021 | root | parent | next [–] The multiple-cursors problem goes to show how much of computing is STILL strongly single-user, even for all our multiuser underpinnings. Arguably the only "single user" devices should be things like the mouse itself, as multiple people can see the same screen (and maybe even use the same keyboard). Some games implemented this to allow two-player on the same machine - each would get a joystick or "their half" of the keyboard. DonHopkins on May 20, 2021 | root | parent | next [–] The Thinkpad with two Trackpoints was ostensibly single user, but multi-hand, which applications still are not designed to cope with, let alone multi user multi hand/finger/trackpoint! Given a program that supported multiple trackpoints, two people could use the two Trackpoints on each side of the keyboard, just like you describe with keys. Now we have multitouch APIs on mobile devices, at least. But they're not a good match for supporting multi-mouse/trackpoint, since they only support tracking fingers while they're touching the screen, not pointing around without pressing like a mouse/trackpoint does.
• DonHopkins 4y ago
  I posted this earlier about Ted Selker's "Joy Button" (I've updated the link to the video of Mr. Lossoff's Distinguished Buttons, who has in fact the most extensive button collection in all the world): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21757484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21757484 DonHopkins on Dec 10, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: ZedRipper: A 16-core Z80 laptop Ted Selker, who developed the Trackpoint at IBM Almaden Research Lab, always calls it the "Joy Button", but IBM just wouldn't go with that. But at least they made it red (thanks to industrial designer Richard Sapper)! TrackPoint (2011) (microsoft.com) [Buxton Collection]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9437780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9437780 https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60 https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60 Some stuff I wrote about the Trackpoint and relative input devices in general: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18340403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18340403 >Input devices should allow users to configure a velocity mapping curve (which could be negative to reverse the motion). X-Widows had a crude threshold-based mouse acceleration scheme, but it's better to have an arbitrary curve, like the TrackPoint uses, that can be optimized for the particular user, input device, screen size, and scrolling or pointing task at hand. >https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mouse_acceleration https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mouse_acceleration >One of the patented (but probably expired by now) aspects of the Trackpoint is that it has a very highly refined pressure=>cursor speed transfer function, that has a couple of plateaus in it that map a wide range of pressures to one slow or fast but constant speed. The slow speed notch is good for precise predictable fine positioning, and the fast speed notch is tuned to be just below eye tracking speed, so you don't lose sight of the cursor. But you can push even harder than the fast plateau to go above the eye tracking plateau and flick the cursor really fast if you want, or push even lighter than the slow plateau, for super fine positioning. (The TrackPoint sensor is outrageously more sensitive than it needs to be, so it can sense very soft touches, or even your breath blowing on it.) Ted Selker demonstrated an early version of the "pointing stick" in 1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hhnlaUxsL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hhnlaUxsL8 Ted always reminds me of another distinguished "Button Man": Mr. Lossoff from Nero Wolfe's "Mother Hunt". Those Button Men can be pretty intense! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-QgWOSVKm4&t=12m5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-QgWOSVKm4&t=12m5s microcolonel on Dec 10, 2019 | next [–] > it's better to have an arbitrary curve, like the TrackPoint uses, that can be optimized for the particular user Maybe you could even learn the curve by counting pointing error (measure the overshoot before clicking), and maybe make it two dimensional (i.e. the sensitivity and acceleration are different based on the direction). I use a program called BrightML to do automatic screen brightness control. It's innovative in that it accounts not only for time of day, location, and ALS if you have it; but also considers which application is focused when you set the brightness. If there is an application which you always turn down the brightness for when it's focused, it'll turn it down in anticipation. A similar thing could probably be done for the TrackPoint acceleration. DonHopkins on Dec 10, 2019 | parent | next [–] That's a great idea, especially since the ideal profile would differ between different apps (or different parts of the same app, like drawing area -vs- toolbar -vs- text editor). Ted wrote some amazing stuff about adaptive curves and other cool ideas he tried, at the end of his whirlwind exposition to Bill Buxton: https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60 https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60 >The ones that got away are more poignant. I designed adaptive algorithms we were exploring- we were able to raise the tracking plateau by 50% for some people, and if we had had the go ahead we could have made that stable and increased performance tremendously. It seems some people used tendon flex to improve pointing- we found this looked like overshoot and we had trouble making the adaptive algorithms stable in the time box we gave it. We made a special application that was a game people played to improve their pointing –as their game play improved the transfer function improved too! We made a surgical tool that used a Trackpoint to allow tremor-free use of a camera from a laparoscope. We made a selector for the FAA to do ground traffic control that saved a multihundred million dollar contract for IBM with the government. I would have loved the product to change cursor movement approach for form filling, text editing and graphical applications; again that could probably double performance. Yes, I s till want to do it NOW. We built a gesture language into the Trackpoint that can be accessed in the firmware; the only aspect the driver exposes is Press to Magnify or Press to Select. We created probably two dozen haptic feedback Trackpoint designs. They improved novice performance and were loved by the special needs community. I did a preliminary study that showed how novices selected faster with it; the product group saw no need to spend the money for that. We made a science experimental test bed to teach physics that never shipped; we made many versions of multi-Trackpoint keyboards that never shipped. We made many other things too- a versatile pointing device for the table called Russian tea mouse allowed for full hand, thumb, finger, or in-the-palm use. We made pen like stalks that allowed selection without taking hands off the keyboard. We made devices that used one set of sensors to run two input devices. We made an electormechanical design used by one special user. We found that brushing the top instead of pressing it could give amazing dynamic range, at the expense of having to cycle the finger for long selections. The joystick for this had no deadband, it had an exquisite sensitivity and control … we never made an in-keyboard device that shipped with this alternative set of algorithms and scenario. I designed better grippy top ideas that never made it; also better sensitivity solutions that never made it too. And I hate to say it but there are many other improvements that I made or would like to make that I could elaborate further on but will stop here…..
• DonHopkins 4y ago
  Here's a classic video of Ted explaining the Trackpoint: IBM Pointing Stick Roll-In - 10_8_1991 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hhnlaUxsL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hhnlaUxsL8 I posted this funny story about Ted from an excerpt of a longer post I wrote about Ted and the Joy Button, and a discussion of the "Nulling Problem": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24106409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24106409 DonHopkins on Aug 10, 2020 | parent | context | favorite | on: ThinkPad 560E >It didn’t come with a cap on the TrackPoint, so I swiped a proper “classic dome” from the spares that came with my T60p to make everything period correct (aside: why are classic dome caps so expensive these days? The soft domes are cheap and everywhere). I still don’t care for Trackpoints, but it has cachet. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9438461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9438461 >Ted Selker [1] is the amazing guy who invented and refined the Trackpoint [2] or "Joy Button" as he called it (but IBM refused to call it). He put years of research and development into the product, and I'm happy he's finally written up and published the story. [3] >[...] >Once I was sitting in a coffee shop in Mountain View hacking on my Thinkpad, and Ted and his wife Ellen rolled in, sat down, and started chatting. Ted noticed that my Thinkpad's Joy Button was all worn down, and he was mortified and quickly excused himself to go out to the car. Ellen rolled her eyes and shrugged, explaining that he was always like that. Then he came back with a big bag of red Joy Buttons, and replaced my worn-out one right there in the coffee shop, and gave me a few extras as spares! >He's a brilliant inventor, and a really nice guy, who apparently always carries around a big bag of spare Joy Buttons in case anybody needs one. ---- I finally found a scan of IBM's infamous "So hot, we had to make it red" Trackpoint ad, and my recounting of the story Ted told me about the origin of that ad. https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/hodidb/so_hot_we_had_to_make_it_red/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/hodidb/so_hot_we_... https://tech.slashdot.org/story/02/08/22/1732201/pie-menus-in-mozilla https://tech.slashdot.org/story/02/08/22/1732201/pie-menus-i... https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=38494&cid=4125064 https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=38494&cid=4125064 by SimHacker ( 180785 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @02:44AM (#4125064) Homepage Journal I think I've actually seen a mouse like you describe, with a trackpoint on it. Ted Selker is the IBM researcher [now at MIT Media Lab] who came up with the Trackpoint, after many years of research and development. He called it the "Joy Button". But IBM they wouldn't go that far out with a product name. But he did get away with suggestting the slogan "So Hot We Had To Make It Red", which survived the focus groups and was printed in huge type on a two page spread ad for the Trackpoint in Time magazine. Ted Selker even made a prototype Thinkpad with TWO trackpoints, one for each hand!!! Boy did that have a nice feel to it! Something not-very-subliminal about the appeal of a computer with two red nipples. People of all persuasions couldn't keep their hands off of it. It was one of those things that was just too good to release. I heard a rumor that IBM keeps the original prototype locked away in their secret underwater sealab, and they installed the only other pair of trackpoints on a laptop given as a gift to Bill Clinton, in exchange for special favors. -Don ---- Original post the first excerpt was from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9438461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9438461 DonHopkins on April 25, 2015 | parent | context | favorite | on: TrackPoint (2011) Ted Selker [1] is the amazing guy who invented and refined the Trackpoint [2] or "Joy Button" as he called it (but IBM refused to call it). He put years of research and development into the product, and I'm happy he's finally written up and published the story. [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Selker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Selker [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick [3] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60 http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxto... I'm glad for the chance to share some of the stories he's told me verbally over the years, some of which I wrote up about a year ago, and I will update with links to more fascinating information about his work. [4] [4] http://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1o26fb/old_school_thinkpad_701c_the_butterfly_keyboard/ccohw9z http://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1o26fb/old_school_thin... Ted is one of my favorite successful mad scientist inventor heroes, who's created many amazing ideas, and followed through to make them practical products! He's in the same league as Will Wright [5], Trurl and Klapaucius [6], Dr. Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Ph.D. [7], and Rick and Morty [8]. [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_%28game_designer%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_%28game_designer%29 [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyberiad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyberiad [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Brown [8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_and_Morty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_and_Morty In 1984 he observed that it took 0.75 - 1.75 seconds to reposition the hand from the keyboard to the mouse, which is a long time for something that you do quite often. ` He tried many different ideas and built several prototypes, then later when he was working at IBM Alameda Research Lab, he had a chance to refine the idea into a product. He had his father, a material scientist, help by designing the special non-skid rubber that the clitoris was made from. IBM wouldn't let him ship it until it was measurably as efficient as a mouse for common tasks. The thing going for it was that it eliminated the 0.75 - 1.75 second hand repositioning penalty, but of course the fundamental problem with it that you can't get around is that it's a relative positioning device, not an absolute positioning device like a mouse. So he had to come up with ways of overcoming that problem. The trackpoint performs very well for mixed typing and pointing tasks, since you switch between typing and pointing so often, and that adds up to a lot of time, and is a very common way of using computers. The mouse is still better for tasks that are mostly pointing and clicking, but it takes up some prime real-estate on your desk, and there are many situations where a mouse is impossible to use with a laptop. He also made the observation that when the cursor moved above eye tracking speed, you tended to lose track of it. And also the observation that some of the time you needed to position it finely around a small area, and other times you needed to move it quickly across a large area. So he came up with a pressure-to-speed "transfer function" that had a non-linear mapping from how hard you were pressing it to how fast the cursor moved. The mapping had a plateau at "predictable fine positioning speed" (i.e. there was a wide range of light pressure that would map to moving the cursor at one exact slow predictable speed, so you could smoothly cruise the cursor around with a light touch at a speed that was good for exact positioning. Then after the plateau of light pressure, it sloped up smoothly until just below eye tracking speed, where there was another plateau, mapping a wide range of harder pressure to a fast-but-not-so-fast-that-you-lose-track-of-it speed, for coarse positioning without losing the cursor. And then above that there was a fast speed for quickly flicking the cursor to the other side of the screen. They did lots of user studies and took lots of measurements and performed lots of experiments to determine the best parameters for the pressure-to-speed transfer function, and finally came up with one that was measurably good enough to make IBM happy and ship in products. So after pooh-pooh-ing the name "Joy Button", IBM finally settled on and trademarked the name "Trackpoint." But one concession they made, was when they published a two page ad spread in Time Magazine with a close-up of the trackpoint, above the slogan "So hot, we had to make it red!" Another crazy but brilliant innovation he developed was the Thinkpad 755CV [9] that you could remove the back of the LCD screen and lay it down on an overhead projector to project the video! Nobody probably remembers overhead projectors any more, but they were very popular at the time, and that feature could save you a lot of money, and you never had to reboot it three times just to get the video on the projector, like with modern laptops! [9] http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:755CV http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:755CV He also made a prototype Thinkpad with TWO hot red trackpoints on the keyboard, which invitingly resembled a pair of nipples. It was very popular with everyone he tested it on, but unfortunately OS/2 had no idea how to cope with two pointing devices, so there wasn't much use for it, besides being a wonderful ice breaker at parties. I don't know if his lab is the one that invented the butterfly keyboard, but it was another in a long line of wonderful innovative ideas that were coming out of IBM's research labs and showing up in the Thinkpad at the time. I learned about this stuff from the talks and demos he gave at his NPUC - New Paradigms for Using Computers [10] workshop that he produced at IBM Alameda Research Labs. [11] -- it was a really great free workshop, including free lunch, with people like Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy! [10] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3SPFfKQMM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3SPFfKQMM [11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10AB0yqxGEw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10AB0yqxGEw Ted Selker, not Edwin Selker, explains the theory and story behind the Trackpoint. [12] [12] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY?t=0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY?t=0s Computer Human Interface Technology IBM ARC - 8_95. [13] [13] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJbjmZaAI4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJbjmZaAI4 1995 IBM NPUC Augment and Bootstrap Institute (July 27, 1995), with Ashok Chandra (IBM), Ted Selker (IBM), Marvin Minsky (MIT), Terry Winnograd (Stanford), Henry Lieberman (MIT), David Kelly (IDEO) , Douglass Engelbart (Bootstrap Institute), Nolan Bushnell (Atari), James Gosling (Sun), Marc Davis (Interval Research), Ramana Rao (Xerox PARC), Steve Mann, Thad Starner (MIT). [14] [14] http://archive.org/details/XD1932_95IBM_NPUC_AugBootstrapInst http://archive.org/details/XD1932_95IBM_NPUC_AugBootstrapIns... NPUC '94 Tape 1A Window Dub. [15] [15] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtUGnhVJsh8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtUGnhVJsh8 NPUC '97 Highlights #1. [16] [16] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSOmRK_PTqM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSOmRK_PTqM NPUC '97 Highlights #2. [17] [17] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3SPFfKQMM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3SPFfKQMM NPUC 1997 Part of Ted's Talk From Compilation 2. [18] [18] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10AB0yqxGEw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10AB0yqxGEw NPCU talks by Don Hopkins and Don Norman, discussing how well intentioned user interface designs can unintentionally enable users to easily destroy cities and cause nuclear meltdowns. [19] [19] http://www.donhopkins.com/home/movies/NPUCHopkinsNorman.mov http://www.donhopkins.com/home/movies/NPUCHopkinsNorman.mov How We Create Power Supply _ From Compilation 1 [20], in which Ted Selker explains why and how his group designed new kinds of power supplies, and focuses on their design approach of doing lots of competing designs at once and comparing them. [20] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dApu7r1WxNk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dApu7r1WxNk Once I was sitting in a coffee shop in Mountain View hacking on my Thinkpad, and Ted and his wife Ellen rolled in, sat down, and started chatting. Ted noticed that my Thinkpad's Joy Button was all worn down, and he was mortified and quickly excused himself to go out to the car. Ellen rolled her eyes and shrugged, explaining that he was always like that. Then he came back with a big bag of red Joy Buttons, and replaced my worn-out one right there in the coffee shop, and gave me a few extras as spares! He's a brilliant inventor, and a really nice guy, who apparently always carries around a big bag of spare Joy Buttons in case anybody needs one. ghshephard on April 25, 2015 | next [–] Thanks for the remarkable post - one question, "the fundamental problem with it that you can't get around is that it's a relative positioning device, not an absolute positioning device like a mouse." - it seems to me that touchpads, mice, and trackpoint nubs are all relative positioning devices. The only input devices that I can think of that are absolute would be a touch-display or digitizer. DonHopkins on April 25, 2015 | parent | next [–] What I meant was that some input devices are "more relative" than others, i.e. second derivative, pressure controlling velocity, instead of movement controlling position. With pressure controlling velocity, you're one more level removed from what you actually want to control, which is position. But that level of abstraction does have its benefits, like avoiding the "nulling problem" that makes context switching more difficult. And in particular, the huge advantages the trackpad benefits from, which overcome the costs of being "more relative", is that it's in a small fixed location, and that location is right where your hands already are, minimizing the (enormous and frequently repeated) cost of switching between pointing and typing tasks (0.75 - 1.75 seconds). Since the trackpad controls velocity, you can press it for as long as you want to move the cursor as far as you want in one direction. But with a mouse or trackpad that controls position, you eventually have to lift your mouse or finger and recenter (nulling it) when you hit the edge of the desk or trackpad. Simply taking your finger off of the trackpoint stops moving (nulling it), while a joystick requires a spring to return it to the center (nulling it) to make it stop moving when you take your hand off of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_device#Joystick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_device#Joystick >Isotonic joysticks are handle sticks where the user can freely change the position of the stick, with more or less constant force. Joystick. Analog stick. >Isometric joysticks – where the user controls the stick by varying the amount of force they push with, and the position of the stick remains more or less constant. Isometric joysticks are often cited as more difficult to use due to the lack of tactile feedback provided by an actual moving joystick. >Pointing stick: A pointing stick is a pressure-sensitive small nub used like a joystick. It is usually found on laptops embedded between the 'G', 'H', and 'B' keys. It operates by sensing the force applied by the user. The corresponding "mouse" buttons are commonly placed just below the spacebar. It is also found on mice and some desktop keyboards. Bill Buxton wrote an insightful and classic paper (one of my favorite of his many great papers) called "Lexical and Pragmatic Considerations of Input Structures" that explains what I'm getting at. http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical.html http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical.html It's well worth reading the whole paper (it's short and accessible), but here's the relevant stuff: Check out "Figure 1: Taxonomy of Input Devices", with the vertical axis labeled "Property Sensed: Position, Motion, Pressure (Sensing Mechanism, Touch Sensitive)", and the horizontal axis labeled "Number of Dimensions (1, 2, 3)". http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical1.gif http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical1.gif The column labeled "Number of Dimensions / 2 / Small Fixed Location" has the following cells: "Isotonic Joystick" @ "Position / Sensing Mechanism" "Spring Joystick, Trackball" @ "Motion / Sensing Mechanism" "X/Y Pad" @ "Motion / Touch Sensitive" "Isometric Joystick" (i.e. trackpoint) @ "Pressure / Touch Sensitive". >Caption: Continuous manual input devices are categorized. The first order categorization is property sensed (rows) and number of dimensions (columns). Subrows distinguish between devices that have a mechanical intermediary (such as a stylus) between the hand and the sensing mechanism (indicated by "M"), and those which are touch sensitive (indicated by "T"). Subcolumns distinguish devices that use comparable motor control for their operation. >[Discussion...] Before leaving the topic of the tableau, it is worth commenting on why a primary criterion for grouping devices was whether they were sensitive to position, motion or pressure. The reason is that what is sensed has a very strong effect on the nature of the dialogues that the system can support with any degree of fluency. As an example, let us compare how the user interface of an instrumentation console can be affected by the choice of whether motion or position sensitive transducers are used. For such consoles, one design philosophy follows the traditional model that for every function there should be a device. One of the rationales behind this approach is to avoid the use of "modes" which result when a single device must serve for more than one function. Another philosophy takes the point of view that the number of devices required in a console need only be in the order of the control bandwidth of the human operator. Here, the rationale is that careful design can minimize the "mode" problem, and that the resulting simple consoles are more cost-effective and less prone to breakdown (since they have fewer devices). >One consequence of the second philosophy is that the same transducer must be made to control different functions, or parameters, at different times. This context switching introduces something known as the nulling problem. The point which we are going to make is that this problem can be completely avoided if the transducer in question is motion rather than position sensitive. Let us see why. >Imagine that you have a sliding potentiometer which controls parameter A. Both the potentiometer and the parameter are at their minimum values. You then raise A to its maximum value by pushing up the position of the potentiometer's handle. You now want to change the value of parameter B. Before you can do so using the same potentiometer, the handle of the potentiometer must be repositioned to a position corresponding to the current value of parameter B. The necessity of having to perform this normalizing function is the nulling problem. >Contrast the difficulty of performing the above interaction using a position-sensitive device with the ease of doing so using one which senses motion. If a thumb-wheel or a treadmill-like device was used, the moment that the transducer is connected to the parameter it can be used to "push" the value up or "pull" it down. Furthermore, the same transducer can be used to simultaneously change the value of a group of parameters, all of whose instantaneous values are different.
• DonHopkins 4y ago
  Here's another earlier post I wrote about Ted Selker with some links to his videos. (I'm an old friend and huge fan of Ted and his work, as you might imagine, and have posted about him frequently over the years!): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19754462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19754462 DonHopkins on April 26, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: Turnover Hits Apple’s Famed Industrial Design Team Ted Selker at IBM Almaden Research had an amazingly successful streak of getting useful innovations from the lab to the market with the ThinkPad, including the TrackPoint (the red joy button), the butterfly keyboard, and the transparent LCD display with removable back cover that works with an overhead projector (at a time when overhead projectors were much more common that expensive video projectors). IBM Pointing Stick #1 - 10_25_91: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY&feature=youtu.be&t=26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY&feature=youtu.be... (Not Edwin Selker!) Ted Selker Oral History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpw7Bml_XvI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpw7Bml_XvI >He worked for short times at Atari and Xerox PARC before joining IBM in 1985. At IBM, first at T.J. Watson Labs, then at Almaden research labs, he rose to Fellow, inventing the TrackPoint cursor control device, making major contributions to the ThinkPad notebook computer, designing artificial-intelligence help and teaching systems, designing wearable computing devices, researching eye tracking systems, and designing an intelligent "living room of the future". (Check out his red TrackPoint lapel pin!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_760 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_760 >IBM ThinkPad 760CDV - Similar to the 760CD, this unique model had a removable back cover on the LCD that would permit light to shine through for use on an overhead projector. IBM ThinkPad 701c "butterfly" keyboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj3aCfqzOM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj3aCfqzOM Opening and closing IBM ThinkPad 701c with unique keyboard folding mechanism. ThinkPad TrackPoints - how do they work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3A7LDyizlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3A7LDyizlc Early TrackPoint prototypes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ss6F1qIHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ss6F1qIHU joezydeco on April 26, 2019 | next [–] I had a 760CDV. That was an amazing machine in an era where you had to carry projector panels around. It never failed to amaze onlookers. DonHopkins on April 26, 2019 | parent | next [–] It was brilliantly focused on solving such a practical real-world problem of the era. But its window of opportunity has closed. Today's laptops can't just afford the overhead or support such open transparency. ;) Dreami on April 26, 2019 | parent | prev | next [–] That sounds really interesting. You don't happen to have any pictures of it? I didn't find anything through Google, just that it existed. jodrellblank on April 26, 2019 | root | parent | next [–] there are pictures of the 755CDV doing that, if that's of any interest: http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/3566815.jpg http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/3566815.... http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/755cdv.jpg http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/755cdv.j... http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/thinkpad-701c-pml-800.jpg http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/thinkpad... (from http://www.lenovoblog.cz/2016/02/historie-rodiny-notebooku-ibmlenovo-thinkpad-1993-1995.html http://www.lenovoblog.cz/2016/02/historie-rodiny-notebooku-i... ) https://thinkwiki.de/755 https://thinkwiki.de/755 joezydeco on April 26, 2019 | root | parent | next [–] Yeah those pictures show it very well. The only thing you don't really see is the existential dread as you hook your expensive laptop to the projector in an inbalanced fashion using velcro straps.... baybal2 on April 26, 2019 | prev | next [–] > Ted Selker at IBM Almaden Research had an amazingly successful streak of getting useful innovations from the lab I always thought that ThinkPads were done by IBM Japanese RnD centre dillonmckay on April 26, 2019 | prev [–] He sounds like a ‘product’ guy. DonHopkins on April 26, 2019 | parent [–] The TrackPoint grew out of his university research, and a lot of user testing and measurement and iterative improvement went into it before IBM allowed him to ship it in a real product. (The youtube video talks about the pressure=>velocity mapping curve they developed and refined.) He collaborated with his father, a material scientist, who designed the rubbery grippy material so it felt just right.
• DonHopkins 4y ago
  Ted Selker's "New Paradigms for Using Computers" workshop at IBM Almaden Labs was by far the most interesting (and free) workshop I've ever attended. Here's something I posted earlier about a talk by Clifford Ivar Nass, one of the many great talks I saw at NPUC: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27403536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27403536 DonHopkins on June 5, 2021 | root | parent | prev | next [–] Microsoft Agent and Microsoft Bob and Clippy were all based on a tragic misinterpretation of the theories of Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves, and as much as those Microsoft products were mismanaged, mocked, maligned, and abused, his theories and work were actually quite interesting and still relevant, though tragically misunderstood. I saw him give a fascinating talk about his work at Ted Selker's "New Paradigms for Using Computers" workshop at IBM Almaden Labs in 1996. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant >The theory behind this software came from work on social interfaces by Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves at Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Nass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Nass >Clifford Ivar Nass (April 3, 1958 – November 2, 2013) was a professor of communication at Stanford University, co-creator of The Media Equation theory, and a renowned authority on human-computer interaction (HCI). He was also known for his work on individual differences associated with media multitasking. Nass was the Thomas M. Storke Professor at Stanford and held courtesy appointments in Computer Science, Education, Law, and Sociology. He was also affiliated with the programs in Symbolic Systems and Science, Technology, and Society. g4tv.com-video4080: Why People Yell at Their Computer Monitors and Hate Microsoft's Clippy https://archive.org/details/g4tv.com-video4080 https://archive.org/details/g4tv.com-video4080 >Alan Cooper (the "Father of Visual Basic") said: "Clippy was based on a really tragic misunderstanding of a truly profound bit of scientific research. At Stanford University, Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves, two brilliant scientists, had done some pioneering work proving conclusively that human beings react to computers with the same set of emotional reactions that they use to react to other human beings. [...] The work of Nass and Reeves proved that when people talk to computers, when they hit the keyboard and move the mouse, the part of their brain that's being activated is the part that has that emotional reaction to people dealing with people. Here's where the great mistake was made. That's really good research up to that point. But then the great mistake was made, which was: well if people react to computers as though they're people, we have to put the faces of people on computers. Which in my opinion is exactly the incorrect reaction. If people are going to react to computers as though they're humans, the one thing you don't have to do is anthropomorphize them, because they're already using that part of the brain. Clippy was a program based on the research that Nass and Reeves did, and it was a tragic misinterpretation of their work." Social science research influences computer product design https://web.archive.org/web/20180313075429/https://web.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/95/950106Arc5423.html https://web.archive.org/web/20180313075429/https://web.stanf... >STANFORD -- A new home computer product to be introduced with fanfare at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Saturday, Jan. 7, is based on research on human-computer interaction conducted at Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information. >"Microsoft's new Bob home computer program is an example of how formerly arcane knowledge about human behavior has become as relevant as computer science to the communication technology marketplace," said John Perry, director of CSLI. The 12- year-old Stanford center does research in the related fields of information, computing and cognition. >"The interface between humans and computers is where the action in computers is now, and so research on how people think and behave is becoming hot stuff," Perry said. >Two social scientists, Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves, professors in the Communication Department, provided their theories and research results to Microsoft Corp.'s "social interface" program designers. The program's first product, called Bob, is to be introduced Saturday, Jan. 7 by Microsoft chairman and CEO Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Reeves and Nass are currently serving as consultants to Microsoft. >Their research can be applied, however, to other forms of information technology, including voicemail and interactive television. >"Nass' and Reeves' work considers to what extent people react to technology as if it were more real than it is," Perry said. "They have found that to a very considerable extent people treat their computers and other computer-driven technology in the same ways that they treat people - as if the computer possessed reason, feelings, etc. People also treat pictures on screens as real objects, rather than as representations of real objects. This is relevant to anyone who wants to design technology or content that is as effective as it can be," Perry said. >This work can also be controversial, Nass said. For example, some women have complained about findings, in his and Reeves' experiments with computer voices, that people are prone to gender stereotyping in voice-based technologies. "Female voices are perceived as less effective evaluators and more nurturing than are male-voiced systems. Female voiced computers are perceived as better teachers of love and relationships and worse teachers of technical subjects than are male-voiced teaching systems," the two reported in CSLI's annual research report. >"We are not supporting gender stereotyping but we are identifying something that people designing products should be sensitive about," Nass said. "It's an important finding also, because it says that you can't blame women for gender stereotyping because of the way they dress and behave. Here is a black box that doesn't dress or behave differently than men, and it still gets gender stereotyped." [...] Computers as Social Actors. Clifford Nass. Professor. Stanford University. "New Paradigms for Using Computers" workshop, IBM Almaden Labs, 1996. https://web.archive.org/web/19980210054622/http://www.almaden.ibm.com/almaden/npuc97/1996/tnass.htm https://web.archive.org/web/19980210054622/http://www.almade... >Individual's interaction with technologies is fundamentally, emphasis on fundamentally, social and natural, and in a minute I'll define what I mean by social and natural. I can refer to in questions. Second point if you'll see is these responses are automatic and unconscious. Simply put, all of you in the audience will deny that you would do when you would see people like you that is experienced computer users do up here. The reason you'll deny it is because these are responses that you're not consciously aware of and that you couldn't control. So what do I mean by fundamentally social. What I mean is go to the social science section of the library and the argument of this talk is the people who know the most by far about human computer interaction or social science. Unfortunately, none of them know that. Little did they know that they had been spending all their time writing deeply about human computer interaction and just were not aware of it. [...] >Phil Agre: This may be as big a question as Ken's, Cliff I found your presentation ethically troubling all the way down, I want to .... >Clifford Clifford Nass: It's not my fault (laughs in the background) >Phil Agre: No, I think it is. At least, it's my concern. Let me just try a scenario on you. In the literature you are talking about is a great deal of research on the conditions under which people are more likely to obey instructions. What do you think about imbedding those principles in user interfaces. Are you comfortable with that? >Clifford Nass: Okay, I think I can give you a really short answer. It is critically important and socially valuable to know all the terrible ways that people can be manipulated. That is critically important that is not to say, nor if I advocated at all in this talk, that we necessarily should use those methods. The discovery that people can be manipulated is one of the most important social findings in the 20th century and I'm also delighted we know that. I'm also delighted that we know we should avoid it, that's good too. There is no ethical component to the discovery that these things exist, there is an ethical component in using them and I am not advocating which ones you use and which ones you don't. That's for the individual .. >Ted Selker: Except, except when you are in your consulting role. >Clifford Nass: Well but even there, I'll give you a really short anecdote: male characters are trusted more than female characters. >Ted Selker: So the character in us, for example if I am designing a user interface I really want to focus and work on tasks and be oriented. Now if I've got this little guy over here, that's like disorienting me. I'm sorry guys, that's not really helping with my task. Now when is it appropriate to have an avatar helping me in a task, and that has to do when the task is generally social probably plus I'm sure we can learn about that. >Clifford Nass: No, it's the same thing as sometimes when I want to know what the meaning of a word is, I look in the dictionary. Sometimes I go to the guys next door, not for reasons of speed but I feel like being social with the guy next door. Even though I may be working on a task I may just feel like it. Similarly social things should be there, social manifestations should be there when you feel like it. With that said, one lesson from Bob is the characters there where way over the top. They spent their life saying look at me I am a character, look at me I am a character, we don't like that in people and we certainly don't like in software either. So social presences that are available when we want them and not when you don't are the people we like the best and those are the people we should model. >[...]
• luxuryballs 4y ago
  Been using these since 2005 and while an actual mouse is better for gaming I can hold my own in an FPS shooter and play Minecraft effectively with the joynub just from experience and max sensitive settings, long live the TrackPoint! Too bad they stopped making the good keyboards though, long live my T420s…
• tiffanyh 4y ago
  TrackPoint Even though I use a Mac for work, I'm still a huge fan of the TrackPoint. Your figures never leave the "home row". Very fast & efficient. I wish other companies would adopt it, though I recall Dell did at one time.
  • dijit 4y ago
    I was about to correct you and say "Dell Latitudes still have them" but I just checked the website and: the latest redesign does not include them. If you are ok with last generation's design: they had them. Latitudes are, notably, designed for business.
• mdeslaur 4y ago
  I don't understand how anyone manages to use a touchpad after getting used to how great trackpoints are. I have to use an external mouse on laptops that only have touchpads.
• causi 4y ago
  It goes by many names: the TrackPoint, the nub, the mouse nipple, the pointing stick, the weird red dot on your keyboard. Has anyone ever called it "the nub"? I've only ever heard trackpoint, trackstick, or clitmouse. Modern touchpads are miles better than they used to be, with full-fledged multitouch gestures and integrated buttons, I really don't understand the workflow of people who genuinely prefer integrated touchpad buttons. How do you put up with not feeling exactly where right-click begins? You're not annoyed whenever your thumb happens to slide a little across the bottom and throw off your pointer aim?
• ubermonkey 4y ago
  That little nubbin was the ONLY usable onboard pointing tech for SO LONG! I think things have changed enough now that younger people may not remember, but holy COW did Windows laptop trackpads suck BADLY for a very, very long time. They were so unusable that pretty much every road warrior I knew on a Win machine carried a mouse. At one point, a colleague who had forgotten his mouse took a cab from the hotel to Best Buy to buy another one. I was stunned and teased him for being a hothouse flower or whatever. "Wouldn't you do the same thing?" "Of course not. My trackpad is fine!" (then as now, I was on a Mac) "Impossible! All trackpads suck!" "Well, try mine." He did. He was stunned. Then I tried his, and holy shit I was enraged on his behalf.
• porridgeandrice 4y ago
  I use a regular trackpad, and maintain fingers on the home row. I use the trackpad with my two thumbs.