Then it wouldn't be necessary to take your hand off the mouse to use the keyboard.
-- rcarty, Mar 06 2013

Keyboard with Trackball http://www.walmart....id}&wl5=pla&veh=sem
As mentioned in an annotation; I'm actually surprised they are still making these things; I thought they went out of style when touchpads (no moving parts, see?) began getting built into keyboards. [Vernon, Mar 06 2013]

Ari Zagnoev: Combimouse http://combimouse.com/Videos.htm
Something like this? [jutta, Jan 02 2016]

There was a thing called accupoint that went in and out of fashion around the turn of the century. It was like a tiny clickable joystick that sat between the g and h keys. You could use it with either index finger without moving from the home position. I loved it, but apparently I was in the minority, because it lost out to the annoying and inferior palmboard touchpad.
-- Alterother, Mar 06 2013


I'm still amazed after the popularity of ee-pads and other tablet type devices that touch-screens are not standard issue on all computers now. I mean what's all this faffing around moving one thing to control the position of another? We have evolved for millions of years to move a thing by touching it directly.
-- pocmloc, Mar 06 2013


Just wait a few minutes and your wish will be granted.
-- Alterother, Mar 06 2013


...and the cat gets the other half of the keyboard?
-- xandram, Mar 06 2013


//what's all this faffing around moving one thing to control the position of another?//

For most heavy-duty users, they want the screen to be large and vertical for ease of viewing, while they want their hand movements to be small and horizontal for ergonomics.

Also, touch-screens are useless whenever precision is needed (as in graphics) since the finger or stylus obscures the thing you're trying to move. Touchscreens are great for simple uses or when you don't have space for a keyboard, mouse, trackpad or whatever.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 06 2013


Alterother I had an IBM thinkpad around 2005 with what you describe. Reminded me of fingering a wart.
-- rcarty, Mar 06 2013


Yep, that's it. Some of them were pretty stiff, but they were all quite precise. No idea why they stopped making them.
-- Alterother, Mar 06 2013


My keyboards (all of the one I use these days) have touchpads built into them. So I only have to move my hand a very short distance from the keys to be able to move the mouse-cursor. I recognized the efficiency-of-motion thing about this arrangement as soon as I first got a keyboard that had a trackball built into it, and have always preferred such combined keyboards since.
-- Vernon, Mar 06 2013


I'm typing on a ThinkPad with a Trackpoint right now.

I think there might be RSI issues eventually: fingers aren't really meant to be stressed laterally.
-- FlyingToaster, Mar 06 2013


"I mean what's all this faffing around moving one thing to control the position of another?"

Fascinating, isn't it? The way we send electrical impulses to muscles that pull on tendons that cause things like elbows and wrists to rotate, bony appendages to lift or extend, all in order to make the fingers at the end of that "hand" at the end of the "arm" change position.

*waves*

Faffing around is a fundamental part of the human tool set. We do it well because we need it to move our bodies. Without the ability to learn new bodies we probably wouldn't survive growing up.

Hey rcarty, check out the video in the Combimouse link. He's actually moving the pointer by moving the keyboard. I think something in my brain just broke watching that.
-- jutta, Jan 02 2016


From reading rcarty ideas it seems that he would need a keyboard on his willy for using the computer.
-- guncandy, Jan 02 2016


I thought I'd already said this, but this is in the oven, for both hands, three times over: King's Assembly, KeyMouse, and Talons.
-- notexactly, Jan 03 2016



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