Pointing Device - Other Devices

Other Devices

• A light pen is a device similar to a touch screen, but uses a special light sensitive pen instead of the finger, which allows for more accurate screen input. As the tip of the light pen makes contact with the screen, it sends a signal back to the computer containing the coordinates of the pixels at that point. It can be used to draw on the computer screen or make menu selections, and does not require a special touch screen because it can work with any CRT display.
• light gun

• Palm mouse – held in the palm and operated with only two buttons; the movements across the screen correspond to a feather touch, and pressure increases the speed of movement.
• Footmouse – sometimes called a mole - a mouse variant for those who do not wish to or cannot use the hands or the head; instead, it provides footclicks.
• Similar to a mouse is a puck, which, rather than tracking the speed of the device, tracks the absolute position of a point on the device (typically a set of crosshairs painted on a transparent plastic tab sticking out from the top of the puck). Pucks are typically used for tracing in CAD/CAM/CAE work, and are often accessories for larger graphics tablets.
• eye tracking devices – A mouse controlled by the user's eyeball/retina movements, allowing cursor-manipulation without touch.
• Finger-mouse – An extremely small mouse controlled by two fingers only; the user can hold it in any position
• Gyroscopic mouse - A gyroscope senses the movement of the mouse as it moves through the air. Users can operate a gyroscopic mouse when they have no room for a regular mouse or must give commands while standing up. This input device needs no cleaning and can have many extra buttons, in fact, some laptops doubling as TVs come with gyroscopic mice that resemble, and double as, remotes with LCD screens built in.
• steering wheel - can be thought of as a 1D pointing device - see also steering wheel section of game controller article
• paddle - another 1D pointing device
• jog dial - another 1D pointing device
• yoke (aircraft)
• Some high-degree-of-freedom input devices
• spaceBall - 6 degrees-of-freedom controller
• discrete pointing devices
• directional pad - a very simple keyboard
• dance pad - used to point at gross locations in space with feet
• Wii Remote(/Wiimote) - pointer function with motion sensing controls on Wii
• soap mouse - a handheld, position-based pointing device based on existing wireless optical mouse technology
• laser pen - can be used in presentations as a pointing device

This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.