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!
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.
To point #1: it’s been my experience that ergonomics and orthopedics are incredibly misunderstood by the tech industry at large, and in my personal experience, orthopedic doctors are often wrong in their diagnoses.
One of many examples is the prevalence of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in the world. It’s the most-common orthopedic surgery in the US, yet its success rate is thought to be around 90%. What would cause the surgery to fail? Technically it could be a botched surgery (eg scalpel cuts the median nerve), but that’s always known at the time of surgery because duh. Rather, the ~10% failure rate is mostly made of cases where the surgery went as expected, yet the nerve impingement symptoms persisted. There’s very little out there on the notion that these patients could simply have been misdiagnosed. If you feel tingling or numbness or burning in your fingers/hand, it could be caused really at any point between the spine and the hand. Typically nerve impingement of the hand occurs in the spine, thoracic outlet, cubital tunnel, forearm, or the carpal tunnel. The symptoms are more or less the same regardless, yet Docs seem to always implicate the carpal tunnel, even though there does not exist a reliable study that shows keyboard/mouse use is a risk factor for developing CTS.
An EMG/NCS isn't necessarily going to bear fruit. Studies and anecdotal evidence both support the idea that nerve conduction tests do not rule out nerve impingement in a particular area. TOS in particular can be tricky to "truly" diagnose through diagnostic imaging.
Cannot second this enough. I typed through the pain and couldn't use a computer for 10 months. That was very stupid of me; please be smarter.
It's worth investing time & money in a good, ergonomic typing setup. If you don't do it up front, you'll be investing a lot more time in money - in physical therapy, and buying top-of-the-line stuff because the mid tier equipment isn't good enough for you to avoid reinjury anymore.
Some things that work for me:
- Vertical mouse (Logitech MX Vertical - there are knockoffs, I haven't tried them)
- Mechanical keyboard with a good amount of travel (laptop keyboards with hardly any travel are no good for me anymore)
- Gaming mouse pad (it's like a mousepad that covers a large area)
- Pads that go over the armrests of my chair (if my arms are resting on hard plastic, it limits my circulation, which exacerbates my tendonitis)
I strongly encourage you to learn proper typing habits. I don't want to speak too authoritatively (if I'm saying anything incorrect, please correct me, and please do research this yourself - it's really important for your health & career), I'm not an expert I just know what works for me, but you shouldn't rotate your wrists, and you shouldn't have them at any sort of angle relative to your firearms; it should be straight and they should just glide over the keyboard. It's a good idea to learn how to stretch your wrists as well.
This is funny and why Thinkpad people are so … religious.
- Vertical mouse (Logitech MX Vertical - there are knockoffs, I haven't tried them)
Or a trackpoint.
- Mechanical keyboard with a good amount of travel (laptop keyboards with hardly any travel are no good for me anymore)
Or a Thinkpad keyboard (though they have been getting shallower).
I've been addicted to Trackpoints since forever. Trackpads seem so backward to me. A trackpoint is like mind control in comparison. I'm lucky Thinkpads are generally good and I don't care for MacOS, because otherwise I'd be really stuck.
Thinkpad keyboards are way better than other laptop keyboards, but it's just not in the same league as a decent mechanical one.
Which then requires a mouse (especially annoying when you're left-handed), but I only need that to click things on websites. There's nothing else I can't easily reach from the comfort of my (mechanical) keyboard. I just plug in a hub filled with HDMI/USB devices and close the lid.
I loved the Trackpoint. Personally I can't use the Thinkpad keyboard anymore (that being the keyboard I was using when I injured myself). Once you commit to an external keyboard, you can't really use the Trackpoint anymore.
One hundred and eighty five dollars for the Tex one, ugh. I love the trackpoint to almost death but I go through thinkpad keyboards faster than average (I guess) and couldn't afford such a luxury, sadly.
I have the ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II. It's pretty good, feels … plasticky but good travel and has a Trackpoint.
However, for me I use the Thinkpad as a "controller" for a desktop, so I get two (well, three, the desktop has two) independant screens and kvm functionality via Barrier (derived from Synergy).
Maybe I'd never want to go back if I tried a mechanical (I got my partner one, but haven't touched it), but I could not go back (way back) to a mouse.
There are a litany of reasons why one’s hand may hurt. As far as non-traumatic injuries go (meaning pain that develops over a period of time as opposed to, say, a skateboarding accident), it’s usually going to be caused by inflammation of tendons (tendonitis), wearing away of bone cartilage (arthritis), or nerve impingement. Diagnosis of the first two is typically straightforward, while diagnosis and treatment of nerve impingement is more complex, reason being the nerve or nerves could be impinged in one (or more!) of several locations between the spine and hand.
I have seen many armchair orthopedic experts on Reddit, Quora and elsewhere talk about “RSI” like it’s a single disorder with a single treatment. In reality, RSI is an umbrella term for many conditions, and not just of the arms and hands. Googling “RSI” is useless. You MUST determine which RSI (if any) you have. The treatment for tendinitis is very different from the treatment for cubital or carpal tunnel syndromes. This is probably why so many people who identify as having “RSI” have been unsuccessful in finding an effective treatment. Heck, if you truly have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, surgery is THE treatment. Anything else is a band-aid. Fortunately, the surgery is quick, the recovery is quick (typically within a week for light activity), and it is usually permanent.
To be sure, if you're experiencing pain you need to see a doctor, and explicitly this is stuff that worked for me that people might try but is not a prescription. I guess what I'm trying to do is encourage people to research ergonomics and experiment with their setup before they experience pain. If you type with bad habits & bad ergonomics for 40 hours a week, it's likely that you will end up in trouble eventually, no?
I just feel like this is a huge missing stair, not only in our industry but in life in general (I've met people who've had similar issues playing piano, using a cash register, and playing guitar), and I try not to overstate how much I know about it, but I also want to let people know it is something they should pay attention to. When the opportunity presents itself I try to give people the warning I wish I'd had.
I saw a physical therapist, an orthopedic surgeon, etc. The surgeon didn't really examine me at all, and no one per say looked too close. I guess I've just never questioned their diagnosis of tendonitis. They were surprised it took me so long to recover, but I chalked it up to being the second time I got an RSI from typing (go figure) and that I probably kept reinjuring myself despite my best efforts (there certainly was some of that).
I don't want to give specifics of my age publicly (if you'd like them please shoot me an email & I'll share then privately) but I'm on the younger side. I don't remember every symptom, but it hurt to type, my hands would fall asleep in the night if I wasn't very careful, I couldn't rotate my wrist comfortably, et cetera. My forearms were covered in adhesions.
That was a few years ago. I don't do as much as I should to take care of my hands but things are a lot better. My hands tire easier than they ought to, they're very sensitive to being impinged upon (eg I can't use the hard plastic armrests of my chair without additional cushioning), and I can't type or especially use the mouse if it's cold without pain (so I don't, I turn the heat up and wait).
I do have this memory of when I was a child, I regularly refused to hold anything when I first woke up. People would try to hand me things and I'd insist my hands felt weird and that I couldn't hold anything until they "warmed up" (figuratively). From what I remember it was similar to how my hands feel when I'm not using my armrests of when I've typed too much. I did have a terrible sleeping habit where I folded my arm under my neck like a chicken wing; maybe I did impinge a nerve in my shoulder or some other weird thing that's followed me around this whole time, I can't say for certain. That sleeping habit did start fucking me up more and more in my adulthood and I had to stop it, and I do get aches in my neck on that same side of I don't use a special pillow. I think I still have a remnant of it where I turn my head at night if my special pillow doesn't discourage it, and then I wake up with a sore neck. I got that special pillow after an incident where I somehow fucked up my back and my whole back was stiff and it was a struggle to move for a day or so.
I don't know if any of that means anything, but there you go.
For you I would be looking at Thoracic Outlet Syndrome being that you are I assume under 35 and male. Just from those two datapoints (age and gender) and the fact that your symptoms seem to be nerve-related rather than tendon-related... sounds like nerve impingement between the spine and arm. I would read up on the symptoms of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (and related/sub-syndromes like Pec Minor Syndrome, which is sometimes considered an entirely separate condition and other times considered a sub-type of TOS).
There are tests you can do at home (some require another person) to test for all of these, and I suspect at least one will aggravate your symptoms:
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Cubital Tunnel Syndrome
- Pronator Teres Syndrome
- Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
- Arthritis (it's probably not this)
- Cervical Radiculopathy (it's probably not this, unless you are old or recently experienced trauma in that area, like a car accident)
All of these are TREATABLE, especially the first four. Ideally you don't have one of the last two, but both of those seem to typically be an "advanced age" thing. Statistically speaking, you probably have one of the first four. It is theoretically possible to have more than one of these things, but probably very unlikely (I don't have any stats handy, but I know it's uncommon).
It doesn't sound like tendonitis to me. I'm not a doctor, but I've spent "tens of hours" researching in this area for my own sake.
There are a lot of people out there who will tell you their "symptoms" got better when they switched to an ergonomic keyboard or a vertical mouse. My theory is that this "very gradual relief" is typically because those ergonomic peripherals subtly relieve nerve impingement going on in, say, the shoulder area. For example, a split keyboard that slopes up towards the middle achieves two things: 1) it pushes the shoulders more out of interior rotation (interior rotation causes Thoracic Outlet Syndrome) and 2) allows the forearms to not be in full pronation (though this is apparently less important as the related nerve impingement, Pronator Teres Syndrome, is linked to repeated pronation MOVEMENTS, not static pronation like you'd expect at a desk job).
I remember reading a Medium article last Summer where the author (a SWE) talked about how switching to an ergonomic keyboard helped, but it took several months to recover from "RSI". To me, it sounds like he switched to an ergonomic, split keyboard, that VERY SLOWLY (over a period of months), relieved interior rotation of the shoulders. I believe that the author would have experienced more drastic relief, sooner, if he engaged in certain stretches and exercises aimed at correcting posture/strengthening posture muscles.
I can't stress enough how important it is that you figure out WHICH RSI you are dealing with. There's A LOT of armchair/self diagnosis going on in places like /r/RSI where people A) don't know which RSI they have and just try things until something works and B) often assert they have "many" RSIs (e.g. tendonitis AND carpal tunnel syndrome AND cubital tunnel syndrome) - this is possible but unlikely. The problem with A is that the treatment for tendonitis is very different from the treatment for carpal/cubital tunnel syndromes, arthritis, radiculopathy, etc. Some on /r/RSI complain of "years of pain", were diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but are refusing (or are perhaps unable) to get Carpal Tunnel Release surgery, which I compare to wisdom teeth removal in both commonality and risk-reward.
Finally, it seems to often take many months, or even years to get a proper diagnosis for "RSI". I recommend to people to do their own research, but do NOT rely on Google. OrthoBullets is a great website full of reliable information, especially in the area of diagnosis. It's meant for medical students, but still very readable by those with other backgrounds. NIH.gov has a lot of good info, like research papers/studies that shows things like:
- There lacks strong evidence to support the notion that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and using a computer have a causal relationship (correlation does not imply causation!)
- Nerve conduction studies (often abbreviated as NCS and EMG) often return a normal/clean result, in spite of nerve impingement, and seem to be useless particularly in early cases (e.g. the nerve related symptoms started, say, a few months ago).
A few times a month my wife has what she calls a "Google patient". Her canned response is: "Your google search isn't equivalent to my medical degree." Some get it.
The part that isn't visible by reading a simple one-line comment describing the interaction is the reality of dealing with patients in almost any kind of practice. I cannot properly convey the experience here. For one, I am just an observer. Here are a few points that seem to come up with some frequency during our "How was your day?" conversations:
Patients, just like doctors and engineers, are in a range between good and horrible. Some work with the doctor, follow directions, take the medicine/treatment and make progress. Others are the opposite, they keep coming back with the same issues (and often more) and, when interrogated, doctors discover they completely ignored (or worse, modified) what they where told to do. This kind of thing is truly frustrating. To put it in CS terms, imagine telling a junior developer how to fix a problem that has been compromising a codebase, only to discover, a month later, that the developer ignored your advice and decide to change variable names instead, because an article on the web said short variable names are better. Bullshit example, yet not too far from medical reality sometimes.
At the extreme are patients who are uninformed, rude, entitled and combative. It seems my wife comes home rattled once every couple of months after having to deal with a complete asshole who ruined her day.
With regards to information, yes, of course, she absolutely prefers informed patients. Why? Because those often turn out to be the good patients she can really help. The "Your google search..." comment isn't a universal statement delivered to anyone who says "I read on the web...". No, that isn't the case at all. She tells me patients do come-in who have done their homework and contribute valuable information to the process. These patients are actively engaged in the process.
There's a vast difference between being informed and engaged in what's going on and reading a few things in social media and actually thinking you know what you are talking about. People insisting on getting antibiotics for just-about everything is one example of this.
Those who receive and deserve the put-down are zero-effort, zero-knowledge patients who, after having read something on the web --which is often irrelevant or way out there-- come to the doctor absolutely convinced that is THE way to handle whatever it is might ail them. These patients are often in the combative, arrogant, rude category. The often require what my wife calls "The New York attitude" treatment. In other words, you have to forcefully (not physically, of course) assert yourself or you can't help them.
As an example, imagine someone coming in asking for a prescription to some ridiculous medicine to be protected from COVID and, at the same time, refuse to get vaccinated because they believe the government injects you with microscopic radio transmitters that track you. Yes, this is an extreme example, of course, however, it is hard for someone not dealing with dozens of patients a day to imagine the range of situations a doctor encounters on a daily basis.
Thank you for writing that down so nicely. I was imagining you meant something like this but I'm still grateful you made it explicit.
I guess the reason I'm touchy about the topic is that, given that I am not a doctor, I have much more experience with encountering idiot doctors than idiot patients. This makes my fear of being patronizingly shut down for "reading things on the internet" much more prominent.
Yeah, but at the same time I saw 3 orthopedic surgeons and 1 neurologist and 2 of them said "carpal tunnel syndrome", one of them said "arthritis" (after saying my X-Rays didn't show any signs of arthritis), and none of them got the diagnosis right (thoracic outlet syndrome). The kicker is the one who settled on "arthritis" is a shoulder guy, the one you'd expect to at least test for TOS.
Just like there are bad engineers, the medical community has bad doctors. Perhaps "bad" is too strong a term. It might be more accurate to refer to them as "low information" or "not up to date" or "low skill" professionals.
On the engineering front, it takes work to stay up to date on the latest technologies. I have been in the field for 40 years, I know lots of people with the same time in the domain who can barely deal with a modern computer, much less design with modern FPGA's, processors and write software in a range of modern languages. People do stagnate. That's just reality.
The same is the case with doctors, or almost any profession. One plumber might be up to date with the latest advances and have great diagnostics skills while the other hits everything with a hammer.
Which hints at the other reality. I have worked with dozens of young engineers just out of school. It is interesting to see just how wide a range of skills and capabilities you get. Those who went into engineering with passion stand out because they are engaged in the field and have a real tangible sense of how things work. For lack of a better term, they were getting their hands dirty before they started university, and it shows. Others came to my desk with such low skills it was hard to conceive how they might succeed.
Doctors have to be in the same reality. We've all heard of doctors who misdiagnose people who, months or years later, through great personal effort, finally discover what was wrong and got it handled. What I have never seen is a root-cause analysis of this (well, there was a TV show years back that did some of this). That's what matters. Medicine (or engineering) will never improve if we don't have a mechanism through which we can go back and ensure some of these things happen with less frequency.
This is where I believe AI-based diagnosis will eventually become a useful tool. Not to replace doctors, but rather to present them with a range of opinions to explore. As with anything in computing, these systems will require accurate data, both medical and from the patient. And that's how we come full circle to the problems in medicine, one of which is having to work with patients who are uninformed or ill-informed from whom it is difficult to obtain accurate data for diagnostics. Not an easy problem.
While all the docs I saw were "friendly", they were all in a hurry, which is probably imposed by the hospital they work for (where applicable), but 2 of the orthopedic surgeons I saw were father and son, with their own practice. Nevertheless, each of them were incredibly late (over 30 min) seeing me. So I would suppose that greed is a component.
The son literally came into the exam room with a laptop showing my X-Rays, said I don't have arthritis, went to leave, I had to stop him and kind of press him because he didn't diagnose me with anything, then he did some test where he pressed my thumbs into their joints and asked if that hurt. It did. Then he said that I have arthritis in my thumb joints. This is the kind of sloppiness I would expect from the juniorist of junior developers, not a medical doctor who spent over a decade in school and specializes in orthopedics. Needless to say, that same maneuver does not hurt my thumbs anymore, and I brought this up when I saw his dad a couple of weeks later. He said something to the effect of "well sometimes arthritis comes and goes" and then changed the subject. The sheer arrogance (I don't think it's incompetence) in that building was astounding. So I, a 27 year old with no signs of arthritis on X-Rays, have arthritis that "comes and goes", even though I continue to work a desk job for 8 hours a day. Makes sense.
I saw a hand surgeon who said the arthritis diagnosis was wrong and couldn't explain why he made that diagnosis.
When the nerve conduction study came back normal, it was subtly suggested that the pain might be psychosomatic since I mentioned the pain went down when I started taking an SSRI.
So after being told by 3 docs it was carpal tunnel syndrome, and then the neurologist saying it wasn't, I went back to the Internet, and stumbled upon Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. It fit so perfectly, and the provocative tests for it immediately made my symptoms worse. At the follow-up with the hand surgeon, I brought this up after she said something to the effect of "well, it's not CTS so I can't help you, here's a prescription for physical therapy, good luck", she immediately said that "TOS is very rare, and it would have shown on the nerve conduction study". This is obviously false (even without the research papers I found) because performing stretches and exercises meant to treat TOS have been incredibly effective for me.
Complete shitshow. And of course I had to pay ~$1000 for all that. It's funny how we can see doctors who are either wrong or unable to come to a diagnosis, and we have to pay them anyway, but if a plumber comes to my house, says I have a bad septic tank, then proceeds to replace my kitchen faucet, obviously I am not going to pay him.
I think my issue was that I was not assertive ENOUGH with these docs, but of course I don't want to be "that guy". Kind of a lose-lose situation.
Sadly, that does happen. I know a couple of people who went through experiences similar to yours. Different ailments, same issue with incompetent/uninformed/lazy/whatever doctors.
In one case the patient had been gaining weight for a couple of years and had other issues despite eating a very restricted diet, exercising, etc. Long story short, it turned out to be a pituitary gland tumor (Cushing's syndrome). This was diagnosed at UCLA by an expert in the field. One surgery later and she was back to normal weight (half the prior weight almost) within a year and feeling healthy. The other doctors had her on a path to nothing good and potentially a short life.
Thankfully bad doctors like these aren't the norm. Yes, of course, as a patient, being informed is super important. Nobody is going to care more about you, your kids, your family than you.
The problem with google searches happens with scenarios like a patient insisting on getting Hydroxychloroquine because they found it online or heard someone recommend it.
With a strong emphasis on "occasionally". The vast majority of doctors and hospitals (the overwhelming majority) are good and medicine is too complex for most people to understand. I see how hard my wife works to keep up with the latest medicines, research, treatments and developments in her field. It's on part with what any top-level hardware or software engineer has to do on a daily basis to be informed and remain relevant. The exception is: We don't generally kill people if we make a mistake.
In other words, yes, being informed is good. Everyone should dig as deep as their education allows them to when it comes to their own medical needs. However, at the end of the day, it is impossible (and unwise) to pretend that this can substitute for a real doctor. We are talking about good doctors here, not the few at the bottom of the barrel who would have better-served society by choosing a different career.
I don't think "good doctors" and "bad doctors" is really a good framing. I think the medical system sabotages the relationship between doctor and patient and creates incentives to spend the least amount of effort on any given patient. That isn't anyone's fault but if your diagnosis is off the beaten path, and especially if it looks like a common diagnosis but isn't that one, it can be incredibly difficult to get a doctor to take you seriously. I think people reacted strongly to your comment because they felt it was emblematic of a dismissive attitude they receive from doctors - regardless of how good a doctor may be.
Same. One doctor didn't understand the previuos one prescription - that it's a combo for self-amplifying symptoms and makes no sense incomplete - I'm lucky that the other worked there for a while. No doctor found out that as a vegetarian I may be missing an enzyme (bromelain, which dissolve mucus).
> 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.
Back twenty years ago I did just this. I was working 18 hour days. Sadly, pain was normal. The thing is, when it is your own company you can't take a couple of weeks off to sort it out.
Ultimately, I designed and fabricated my own ergonomic desks. My preference has been to use a thumb-actuated trackball. Soon after making these desks I was back to my 16 to 18 hour a day schedule and had no pain at all. Yes, it took a while for the soreness and inflammation to disappear. The point is, my wrists got better, even while working long hours.
It is crucially important to pay attention to ergonomics and learn to be relaxed. Mice, in my opinion, are terrible. It depends on the task, of course. In my case, my time is split between EDA CAD (electronics design), software development and mechanical 3D CAD. In other words, reaching for the mouse is unavoidable. In this context, the trackball has proven to be the right tool for the job. I have tried some of the fancy 3D knob technology and more. None of it really worked for me.
Here are a couple of old pictures showing the key element in the design; a dropped-down surface for the keyboard and trackball and a nice forearm support bar.
I have also used for some years a thumb-actuated trackball, which was a great improvement in comfort over a mouse.
However, more recently I have replaced it with a Wacom graphic tablet configured in mouse mode, which, at least for me, has been a huge improvement in precision, speed and comfort over any mouse, trackball, trackpoint or touchpad.
In my case it spans a range from typical office/email applications to mechanical 3D CAD, software engineering, electronics CAD, various specialized manufacturing tools/applications and graphic design software. It's varied enough that there's no way I could use a Wacom tablet (I have a few). The trackball seems to be the best common denominator for everything but running tools like Photoshop/GIMP/Corel. In that case the preference these days for us has shifted to drawing tablets with built-in displays (https://www.xp-pen.com/).
I don’t understand why it is adjustable in the first place[1]. Personally I bring it all the way to the right, or one notch below, and never touch it again. To me it is less adjustable, and more that the default value is wrong and have to be mitigated.
1: On TrackPoint tab in classic Control Panel screen, separate to mouse cursor sensitivity on the other tab. Both has different effects.
I was dealing with soreness for a while, and of course it's different for everybody, but two things helped me: 1) Learning more keyboard shortcuts and terminal commands, to cut down on mouse use for a while. 2) Touch screen. Those things also helped with eyestrain headaches.
I think in the case of keyboard shortcuts, I was able to look away from the screen while typing, or at least, not focus so intently. The touch screen might be a bit more hypothetical, but I think it doesn't require as much visual acuity, so can relax my eyes a bit more.
I've read that frequently looking away from the screen, so your focus doesn't remain fixed to one position, is helpful for eyestrain. Thanks to touch typing, I can write text and even code with my eyes closed.
Of course you know how it goes... other things may have changed at the same time.
> I've read that frequently looking away from the screen, so your focus doesn't remain fixed to one position, is helpful for eyestrain. Thanks to touch typing, I can write text and even code with my eyes closed.
Interestingly, not knowing how to touch type would also mean that you frequently switch your eyes from the screen (to look at the keyboard). In fact, as someone who has learned to touch type but is still making a lot of mistakes, my eyes are much more glued to the screen than when I used to have to look at the keyboard to find my place again.
Upping the sensitivity and switching to the soft rim cap makes a huge difference. We have ThinkPads at work and I'm not surprised most of my colleagues don't like the Trackpoint with its default cap and settings; Lenovo aren't doing it and favours.
I had a lot of problems with the pain in the arm strings as you mentioned.
At some point I switched to slim keyboards, and to a trackball mouse. I also tried to use a magic trackpad in between but that made it worse.
Nowadays I am using the Thinkpad USB keyboard combined with a CSL vertical mouse and I don't have any string injuries anymore. I mainly chose the keyboard because it is actually one of like 3 that doesn't have batteries and doesn't have a numpad that I don't use anyways.
As a mousepad I am using an aluminium/teflon mousepad I have for like 20 years now. It is superflat and doesn't make my arms stick to it while moving.
As to your mouse movements: the thinkpad usb keyboard has an additional middle mouse key, which does exactly that. It's just so comfortable to use while browsing.
For lots of mouse movements, like in CAD tools or other mouse-heavy environments I still stick to using my vertical mouse though.
What made me give up the TrackPoint was.. a new Thinkpad. It has simply gotten so difficult to use with the T460s, possibly due to the high screen resolution (I had the 2560x1440 variant). Increasing the sensitivity did not feel right, and it sometimes have too much inertia (pointer keeps moving after I release the nipple mouse). I hurt my fingers trying to use it at a low sensitivity. Eventually I just gave up and switched to the touchpad for most use cases. More recently, I got another Thinkpad with a lower resolution, and it seems to be much better, but I'm no longer that accustomed to using it anymore. Maybe I should consider trying it again.
I like them even on newer ThinkPads just as much, and I've used them on an X1 Carbon with a 4K screen (I do use Linux exclusively, so maybe it's different on Windows). One thing I have noticed is that as the trackpads have gotten bigger, hitting it with your palm becomes much easier, despite any software protections against that. I generally disable the touchpad on newer models, something I never have to do on my old trusty T420s.
I agree with the grandparent and disagree with the parent. My X220's Synaptics TrackPoint is very responsive and natural, and I can get my work done (though the TrackPad is poor). My X1 Carbon Gen 7's ELAN TrackPoint randomly increases and decreases in sensitivity, I can't get used to it, and I end up using the TrackPad instead (which is decent but I still prefer a good TrackPoint).
I also agree. The whole reason a got an X1 Carbon was that I figured Lenovo couldn't screw up the trackpoint or keyboard too much. I was wrong. The trackpoint frequently meanders off on its merry way and the keyboard is unimpressive and now has some keys which don't work. Even though the screen and sound are a big step up, I'm back on the X220.
Naturally, like every device nowadays, they've traded thickness for function so it is also impressively thin. If I enjoyed using the keyboard, I would also be pleased with the battery life.
I have the same problem. For some weird reason my company-provided X13 Yoga's trackpoint just doesn't feel right. I tried adjusting it but I eventually gave up and switched to trackpad (I don't use the laptop that much anyways).
That one doesn't even have a huge screen resolution (1920x1200 I think) so I don't quite understand what's wrong. Maybe some change in parts?
I disable the trackpad in the bios I’m so addicted. I would go to meetups in the before time and people would try use my computer and I’d have to tell them, oh yeah the trackpad is disabled… from the bios.
Also there have been times (I guess long ago) when id rub into someone with a computer with a nipple (did toshiba used to have these? Guess they didn’t call then trackpoints?) and start poking at it, and the person would say, “yeah this piece of junk has one of those” and I’d say “what? These are awesome!”
Don’t get me started on how deadly I was with a shotgun in CounterStrike on one of these in college
Toshiba laptops, now branded Dynabook and owned by Sharp/Foxconn, still have them on some models. If you want 32gb noticeably below 1000g they are literally the only option on the market (if you can find them, that configuring seems to be virtually unavailable).
Unfortunately their trackpoints come without that middle mouse button, which I liked to set to scrolling by trackpoint on my Dells.
(haven't used a laptop without trackpoint in ages but never really converted for regular pointing)
I use an X220 for everyday computing, with the trackpad disabled. Before that, I used a Fujistu Lifebook P1120, which also had a trackpoint (and a touchscreen, and no trackpad). I can't use other laptops. If I can't keep using Thinkpads or the equivalent, I'll cobble something together and abandon the laptop form factor entirely.
Re the force - it's the settings 93.2%, and the nub preference 6.8%. Different height shape and grip of different nubs work for different people.
Otherwise agreed. I find track pads Incredibly wasteful - we've continually canibalizing the keyboard for sake of larger track pad. I bit the bullet and splurged on t25 (with traditional keyboard including home row)about 5 years ago,and it remains my daily driver.
Especially the smaller you go, including what used to be net books (12" and smaller) - track point is exactly as effective at all scales, whereas track pad and keyboard compromises become worse and worse.
P.s. For some reason even though I'm a rightey,I use track point with my left hand which lets me switch it up a bit and makes for less of a stretch. Using track point for me is effective efficient and completely automatic. Track pads, still a struggle, whether I'm using it myself or watching somebody else scroll scroll scroll :-/
I'm in the same boat, but using trackpoint + vim shortcuts for most things (including window manager, browser, and of course, vim). Works really great for day-to-day coding and browsing. If I have to do something that's easier with a lot of pointing (like making diagrams on inkscape) then I just use an actual mouse.
I've only ever bought one laptop in my life, a 2007 Lenovo Thinkpad right after I graduated high school. I ordered it with a touchpoint and, critically, no trackpad at all. It was glorious. Physical mouse buttons immediately under the spacebar instead of five miles away. No touchpad to accidentally brush against. No sharp trackpad edges to rub against your palm. Physical mouse buttons instead of these godawful buttonless trackpads that are ubiquitous now. My god. Just leagues and leagues better than anything manufactured today. I've considered buying a new laptop a few times, but the trackpad is mandatory today, so I just throw up my hands and stick with my desktop & phone.
I was the same - had ThinkPads for years after my first laptop (a Toshiba) in the early 90's had a trackpoint.
The only thing that has come close to being good enough are apple trackpads. Yes, still have to remove fingers from home row, but the control is as good.
> I always feel like my options for newer laptops are limited because of this, forever tied to Lenovo.
I'm now becoming convinced that pairing a good external Trackpoint keyboard with a 2-in-1 laptop will be the way to go if you don't want to be tied to Lenovo.
But then I'd have to cart around an extra keyboard! Plus I use my laptop far too often in places where it'd be uncomfortable to do so: namely me sitting somewhere with the computer on my lap.
A few people here have noted problems with the amount of force needed to use the trackpoint
If that is the case, get a tighter-fitting and harder top for it. The tiniest bit of play or flex is wasted force. The actual pointing stick is remarkably sensitive.
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.
There is minor variance required in the force, but I think that the people who believe it required force either had really weak fingers or did not understand you dont 'mash' it like a track pad.
And then be stuck in the same situation: tied to one company, albeit a different one?
But no, I still prefer the trackpoint: any trackpad, no matter how godly, still involves moving my hand from the keyboard down, back and forth, back and forth. Nothing is speedier than to move the mouse pointer around with a trackpoint.
And I would grant for certain applications a trackpad is better, like image editing where your hand is on the trackpad most of the time. But for anything involving heavy keyboard use, a trackpoint can't be beat.
> 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.
IMO which rubber nub you use is huge as well. I'm partial to the wide and concave nub, as you can simply pressure the edge and the mouse moves.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
have you tried the shinobi? because I replaced my lenovo from your link (it's not terrible, but isn't what I am used to from older thinkpads) with a tex shinobi, and despite it costing more than 300€ (incl bluetooth extension) to have it imported, I have no regrets. using the shinobi sparks joy, the lenovo one does not. of course ymmv
The Logitech K400 Plus [1] is a solid contender in the couch-service class IMO. It has a left click button on the top left of the keyboard and a trackpad on the right, such that you can swipe on the touchpad with your right thumb and click with your left thumb. [2] Very natural and intuitive ergonomically, but most importantly for me in college it was both indestructible and cheap.
Ive been daily driving my TP KII for a while, coming form the original usb. I hope the TP KIII has backlight keys. Absolutely fantastic keyboard for most things I need. I have a Mechanical at the other end of the desk for when I need "something else".
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
This already existed. The IBM/Lenovo ScrollPoint mouse.
I seem to remember using the original one 20+ years ago, which was literally just a TrackPoint where a scrollwheel was on a mouse. But I think the 2.0 version was more popular.
The early "TrackPoint Mouse" had a regular Trackpoint. ScrollPoint had a bigger knob shaped more like a mousebutton. There were several models with different shaped mouse bodies.
A problem is that you'll need drivers to use them, or some hack to turn down the scrolling sensitivity. If you just plug one in, it will scroll much too fast. They had been made before Microsoft's high-precision scrolling extension to the USB HID protocol: the default is 24 detents/revolution which is not enough for scrollpoint.
Huh, I'd never seen those and that's pretty much exactly what I want. I figured my idea was too obvious to be original, but wondered if someone had created a failed product based on a patented design, thus locking out anyone else from making the same thing. I don't know if IBM ever patented it, but that seems to fit. And since it was released in 1998, the patent (if there is one) is probably just recently expired.
TBH reaching back into the foggy recesses of my raving-addled-brain-from-the-90s, I never saw one other than when I worked on contract at IBM (Toronto, Don Mills office) in the fall of 1999. I seem to remember having one at my desk. The original TrackPoint version.
And I have a vague recollection of liking it, though I also remember my finger calloused a bit from its use. Like playing guitar.
I very like this one. We could be using zooming UI now if it had two joysticks: one for scroll, one for zooms (view and text or distance and perspective); three had the keyboard (one for cursor) - and what about one more (not on the mouse) for 'rotation', mean 4 2D analogues as default ?
>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.
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.
It's not supported in every application, but most web browsers & document browsers have some kind of middle-click autoscroll situation. You may have to toggle it On in the settings. Basically you middle-click once (or click & hold), a little scroll icon appears, and then the document scrolls based on how far your mouse cursor is from the scroll icon. Click again (or release) to stop scrolling. Functionally it's pretty similar to the pitch bend wheel you describe. Works great when it's available.
Those look like they have standard scroll wheels, albeit maybe they're wide enough that you could get a continuous scroll by alternating between index and middle fingers. Am I missing something fundamentally unique about them?
That seems like an improvement, but not really what I'm talking about. I'd like a mouse where the scroll wheel is replaced with something you can apply pressure to, and as long as you apply pressure it continues to scroll -- no need for your finger to even let go of it. (Someone else pointed out that IBM released a mouse that works the way I'm describing a long time ago. It was kind of a commercial flop, partly due to IBM being slow to switch away from mechanical mouse balls to optical sensors.)
My Logitech g500 from many years ago has a physical toggle for detent/freewheel scrolling, and I love it. Precise when I need it, and zooming up or down when I need speed.
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.
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.
I find that trackpoints tend to have low default sensitivities, which require a lot of force to use.
At least for me, maxing out the trackpoint sensitivity on my X1 Yoga results a noticeable decrease in the amount of force required & didn't have an impact on accuracy.
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.
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.
> 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.
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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.
> 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.
I just tried putting the sensitivity on my trackpoint to max, and the cursor literally doesn't move if I swipe my finger across the trackpoint. I have to actively apply downward force for the trackpoint to register. When I use an Apple touchpad, I only ever have to lift my finger if I exhaust the pad's surface area, and the force required to click is lower than what is required to activate the trackpoint.
that is a garbage trackpoint, then. Absolute rubbish. if I turn sensitivity way up on my old IBM A31p and blow through a straw onto the side of the trackpoint, the cursor moves, albeit very slowly.
Back in the day, I would return the entire laptop because of a rubbish trackpoint if it were an IBM built ThinkPad.
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.
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.)
I have never seen a non Apple device with a trackpad that is even in the same league as Apple trackpads. There's Apple and everybody else. The Lenovo ones in particular are hot garbage in comparison. Poor sensitivity, tiny surface area, low resolution, etc. Just no comparison whatsoever. The brushing thing is not an issue. Never happens for me. I brush it plenty. But never hard enough to register as a click. Of course the 'click' is not mechanical. But it does require some force. So all my clicks are 100% intentional.
The nipple thing is a stopgap solution. Most lenovo users I know have a wireless mouse that they use almost exclusively. Neither the trackpad nor the nipple thing is acceptable to them, appaently. I have a Samsung linux laptop. Same thing. The trackpad is a piece of shit so I use a logitech mouse with it. With all of my macs in the last 15 years, I never felt the need to connect any external keyboard or mouse to them. It's that good.
I actually connected an Apple Magic trackpad 2 to my Samsung laptop just to see if that makes a difference. It's great. Software support in Linux for that is fine. Silky smooth, responsive, gestures, everything. It's the trackpads in laptops that are terrible, not the software support for them. Almost universally every non Apple laptop out there has terrible trackpads. The reason I own that magic 2 trackpad is that I actually prefer using that over a mouse with my imac.
The brushing thing is not an issue. Never happens for me. I brush it plenty. But never hard enough to register as a click. Of course the 'click' is not mechanical. But it does require some force. So all my clicks are 100% intentional.
Parent said input, not click. It is annoying, and bothersome for the mouse to move, even without a click.
It's not a thing I notice. On my mac, the cursor actually disappears when I type. My Linux Samsung laptop has a lousy trackpad but there too, it doesn't seem to get in the way of typing. Do Lenovo users disable their trackpads completely?
From my personal experience, modern apple trackpads are still ahead of the competition, but not leagues ahead.
They're still massive, and the whole "Force Touch" thing is very nice. Both being able to click anywhere on the trackpad, including the top where the hinge would usually be, and the "press harder to do something" functionality is more useful than I thought it would be.
I find that I can keep my hand on the home row and just reach over my thumb for trackpad use 90% of the time on the MacBook, whereas with the xps and razor blade the top 10-20% of the trackpad feels unusable (and they're pretty small)
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.
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.
I really hate Apple, but had to switch because that's the predominant laptop at my company. The HP trackpad sucked, and I had an actual mouse because there was no way I would use that trackpad. I mean seriously, who thought it was a good idea to make right click a tiny little magic area that you have to press just right in order to activate it?? I literally don't ever use my mouse when using my Apple work laptop now. I don't understand why multi-touch and gestures aren't a thing on every trackpad.
I can't speak to other laptop brands so maybe it's better for those. My 2016 Lenovo's trackpad wasn't something I ever used regularly either. I had a mouse for that computer as well because the trackpad never felt good.
> I don't understand why multi-touch and gestures aren't a thing on every trackpad.
I was under the impression that multi-touch has been standard for years. I've had it on Dell and Lenovo in the past few years, and I think my Asus a decade ago. And aren't gestures a software thing?
For me, what makes MacBook trackpads stand out are 3 things:
1) The acceleration. The faster you move your finger, the farther you can fling out the cursor. For comparison, my ThinkPad's trackpad simulates a trackball i.e. it doesn't have acceleration, only inertia.
2) 3-finger drag-and-dropping. As far I know, the MacBook is the only laptop that supports this. Also you can simulate a left mouse button press-and-hold by resting 3 fingers on the trackpad.
3) The feeling. The glass surface make it feel like you're sliding your fingers on butter.
1) Configurable in software. I have it right now in Ubuntu; I think it's the default settings, though perhaps not as noticeable and needs to be made more sensitive for others?
2) Probably configurable in software, but unnecessary. Double-tap-hold (where the second tap you don't lift your finger) means holding down the click from the first tap, so drag-and-drop works just fine with a single finger.
3) I tried a co-worker's Mac a few years ago out of curiosity after hearing so much about the touchpads, but something about the sensation bothers my skin so much I don't want to touch it for more than a few seconds. It's a similar revulsion I get to touching felt.
I learned about this today. Looking forward to turning it on on my ThinkPad. The default behavior on Windows 10 with the Synaptics drivers for my ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen 3 (2015) is not to have any acceleration, only inertia.
My personal opinion is that 3-finger drag-and-drop > double-tap-and-hold for 2 reasons:
- there is no delay
- you don't risk running out of space when dragging things. You can leave 2 fingers on the trackpad and keep dragging with your 3rd finger.
I agree that Apple's done a great job with making their trackpads ergonomic. I can't actually recite all the gestures I use on a daily basis on it.
1) I don't know what software stack you're using (I'm on Debian Linux) but acceleration is a supported setting on both the TrackPoint and the TrackPad. Personally I find acceleration vital to them being usable. On Windows there's QL mouse accel filter to customize the curve to an advanced level. On macOS there's an older software called ControllerMate that let you set a custom acceleration curve. I don't know if it works on modern systems though.
2) I don't know what 3-finger DND is because I use 1 finger to DND. Mind explaining a bit more? I've got 3 fingers bound to Mission Control which might be a default and I find quite handy.
I have a ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen 3 (2015) running Windows 10 with the Synaptics drivers. Thank you for the info on Linux and Windows. Will make sure to enable the acceleration on the laptop.
About the 3-finger drag-and-drop - it used to be on by default. Now you have to enable it manually since 3-finger swipes are bound to Mission Control and Expose. Once you enable it, Mission Control and Expose will be bound to 4-finger swipes. To enable it:
- Go to Settings > Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad Options...
You don't need to worry about running out of space when dragging with 3 fingers - once you start dragging with 3 fingers, you can leave 2 fingers on the trackpad and keep dragging with your 3rd finger.
It's actually an accessibility feature. In Ventura, go to System Settings > Accessibility > Pointer Control. There you'll find Dragging Style. Options are 'Without Drag Lock', 'With Drag Lock' and 'Three-Finger Drag'. It works exactly as you think; use three finger touch to drag anything.
it's the gestures. once you learn the gestures you start realizing what everyone else is talking about. I've owned thinkpads, and I love the old keyboards and trackpoints. I was always a thinkpad/linux/bsd user (still am). I have my first macbook (air m1), and the way gestures work on macbook means I don't miss the trackpoint.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
> If I can smash a trackpoint onto a mechanical keyboard I would love to.
There's precedent. :)
If I heard correctly, when the inventor went to pitch TrackPoint in a meeting at IBM, he showed up with a normal keyboard, a TrackPoint assembly, and a drill, and proceeded to retrofit a TrackPoint in front of them.
He once spontaneously offered to give me a new TrackPoint SpaceSaver II keyboard (he had a couple retail boxes of them in his office). That happened to be my dream keyboard at the time, so I knew it was $170, which seemed way too expensive a gift for a poor grad student, so I couldn't accept. :)
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).
I have the Shinobi as well. It is my keyboard dream come true: I always wished that somebody (ideally not Lenovo) would make an external Thinkpad keyboard with physical switches. And then Tex did exactly that.
Now some laptop project (perhaps Framework?) just has to team up with Tex to make a real ThinkPad alternative.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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...
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…
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
>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.
>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
>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
>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.
>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.
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!):
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).
>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".
>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.
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:
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 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.
>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.
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.
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]
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]
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].
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!
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!
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]
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]
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.
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.
>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.
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)".
>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.
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):
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)!
>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.
>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:
> 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:
>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…..
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!
>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.
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!)
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:
>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.
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!