Related Directory Categories
- Alternative Input Devices (17)
- Input Devices (2)
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Input device
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is uncategorized. Please categorize this article to list it with similar articles. (December 2007) |
Examples of types of keyboards include
Issues and techniques related to keyboards include
- Keyboard shortcut
- Command history
- Autocomplete
- Autoreplace
- Intellisense
- ShapeWriter
- Chinese input methods for computers
Contents |
A pointing device is any computer hardware component (specifically human interface device) that allows a user to input spatial (ie, continuous and multi-dimensional) data to a computer. CAD systems and graphical user interfaces (GUI) allow the user to control and provide data to the computer using physical gestures - point, click, and drag - typically by moving a hand-held mouse across the surface of the physical desktop and activating switches on the mouse. Movements of the pointing device are echoed on the screen by movements of the mouse pointer (or cursor) and other visual changes.
While the most common pointing device by far is the mouse, many more devices have been developed. However, mouse is commonly used as a metaphor for devices that move the cursor.
For most pointing devices, Fitts' law can be used to predict the speed with which users can point at a given target position.
Examples of common pointing devices include
- mouse
- trackball
- touchpad
- spaceBall - 6 degrees-of-freedom controller
- touchscreen
- graphics tablets (or digitizing tablet) that use a stylus
- light pen
- light gun
- eye tracking devices
- steering wheel - can be thought of as a 1D pointing device
- yoke (aircraft)
- jog dial - another 1D pointing device
- isotonic joysticks - where the user can freely change the position of the stick, with more or less constant force
- 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
- discrete pointing devices
- directional pad - a very simple keyboard
- dance pad - used to point at gross locations in space with feet
Some devices allow many continuous degrees of freedom to be input, and could sometimes be used as pointing devices, but could also be used in other ways that don't conceptually involve pointing at a location in space.
- Wired glove
- ShapeTape: [1]
- Some haptic devices
Input devices, such as buttons and joysticks, can be combined on a single physical device that could be thought of as a composite device. Many gaming devices have controllers like this.
- Game controller
- Gamepad (or joypad)
- Paddle (game controller)
- Wii Remote
- Webcam
- Image scanner
- Fingerprint scanner
- Barcode reader
- 3D scanner
- medical imaging sensor technology