The Joypad That Became A Rotary Controller

jaromil writes "Speaking of human/computer interface, so simple, so neat, a usb knob to switch among desktops can give us quite some feeling about operating a machine... how about such controls around the monitor?" The knob in this case is switching between different effects possible with EffecTV. This make me wonder what creative uses people are putting Griffin's PowerMate to.

Very bad idea

[Pan T. Hose]

"how about such controls around the monitor?"

As any mouse user can tell you, taking your hands off your keyboard is damaging to your productivity.

iPod...

[eobanb]

If you think about it: weirdly, the iPod is a rotary controller that became a joypad. The first iPods had the mechanical scroll wheel and then they moved to the touch wheel....but the latest generation also rocks left, right, up and down. I personally love these kind of interfaces. Scroll wheels on mice are similar, as are just plain old dials, but they requre you to lift up your finger/hand repeatedly to scroll far enough in either direction. The iPod doesn't. What if that kind of interface was more widespread?

Some notes on USB interfacing...

[enginuitor]

The fact that the author used a USB game pad as the electronic base of his device brings up an issue which increasingly plagues electronics hobbyists... Manufacturers are beginning to see many useful protocols (such as RS232) as obsolete and completely remove support for them from their products. While the average American consumer, who uses arbitrary metrics and units-of-measurement-become-buzzwords (megapixels... gigahertz... etc.) to judge the worth of a device, would not care much about seeing those ugly trapezoidal plugs disappear from the back of their computers, it presents a huge problem for us hobbyists who rely on good-old '232 and similar "old" interfaces for easy communication with a computer. Anyone who's ever written (or tried to write) USB interface code knows that's Hell to work with. Fortunately, though, there are solutions... including handy interface chips [ftdichip.com] which handle all the nasty USB work and provide a simple asynchronous serial interface on the project end. However, I still will never buy a motherboard without RS232!

Re:Second scroll wheel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I'm using a cheap A4 Tech Mouse wtih two scroll wheels (one clickable). It was a shame the drivers for the side buttons are so crap, so I've reverted to using Microsoft drivers as I find the side buttons more useful than a second scroll wheel. The second scroll wheel does have the advantage of scrolling faster, or with the drivers it defaulty scrolls horizontally. I only got the mouse because it was cheap, IMHO a second scroll wheel isn't that useful.

Re:De-Evolution?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think the switch from knobs to buttons in itself a de-evolution in user interfaces in a few respects.

I think knobs are great. They give a more linear feel to a control rather than just holding down a button. With a button, you are held captive by how fast the maker wants to allow the setting change. With a knob, a quick twist, or turning as quickly or slowly depending on fine/coarse tuning, is all that is needed.

Both knobs and buttons have their places though. I suspect buttons are used because they are cheaper, and bean counters love cheap.

Re:Bad idea.

[mrchaotica]

Mac OS can do the real thing [sourceforge.net] too -- and with more eye candy than Windows or Linux!

So yeah, actually ALL major operating systems can do virtual desktops, just not by default (and Linux doesn't do it by default either, since it defaults to TWM!)

technology comes full circle

[zakezuke]

We went from knobs that were attatched to our televisions to buttons that evolved by having remotes and such.

Part of the reason that buttons on TVs became attractive is because it reduced the overall foot print of the TV. I have one 19 inch TV circa mid 80s that measures 25inches across, and one 27 inch tv that measures 24 inches cross, the key diffrence is the 19 inch has the old style turnknob and the 27 inch has but a handfull of buttons. More picture but smaller footprint, it's a good tradeoff, so long as you don't loose the remote control.

But who in this day and age would want to flip through the 100+ channels available on cable TV? Those who remember tuning in UHF might remember this noice *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK*! This would be far too impractical, but at the same time round volume controls are back in fashion. Unlike buttons they allow us to choose how fast we turn the knob, and we can remember there and abouts how far to turn to get at the right loudness level. I don't consider this to be de-evolution at all because the controls are often digital rather than an old style pot the likes of which gets cloged up with dust and dirt and becomes scratchy over time, but rather an evolution of what works and bringing to forth to the next level. Besides it's a hell of alot easier to spot the volume control if it's a knob rather than buttons.

Re:Griffin Powermate...

[tepeka]

I agree - it's amazing. I bought one for my 76-year-old father, who uses a CRT iMac and has bad enough vision that he can't get a driving licence anymore. It's set up to trigger the Mac's Zoom feature. Twist it to the right, and the screen zooms in on the cursor position, twist it to the left and it zooms back out. Click it once and it magnifies the cursor position four times, click it again and it returns to 1X. It's a great bit of kit. He looked at me like I was mad when I showed it to him first, but now he raves about it. Of course, it helps that OS X has a great accessibility feature to use it with...

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not such a bad idea

[uberdave]

If your productivity is text oriented, then yes, taking your hands off of the keyboard is damaging to productivity. If it is graphic oriented, then a mouse, or graphic tablet is better. What if your productivity is music oriented? You're better off with a piano keyboard than a typewriter keyboard. In short, matching the interface to the task will always give you better productivity.

Having said all that, a horizontal thumbwheel mounted on the edge of the keyboard, underneath the spacebar allowing me to scroll sideways from desktop to desktop would be cool.

i made my powermate send midi data

[FFON]

here is the use i found for my powermate

made a max/msp patch to make it send midi CC data

http://www.johnmccaig.com/downloads/patches/iknob. zip [johnmccaig.com]

Re:Griffin Powermate...

[torpor]

I have two, one on each side of my USB keyboard, and I have to say that once you've used a 2-Powermate setup for audio/video/midi editing, you'll wonder how you'll ever go back to that primitive mouse interface.

In fact, I rarely use my mouse any more, actually, except when I really need to. Everything I need to do is way more fun from either side of my 'pinball rotary' setup. No more right-hand-only RSI .. well, at least not as a result of any mouse activity, anyway ..

wearable computing

[FrenZon]

Some time ago I used the powermate in a wearable computing project [riot.com.au] using tones and computer-synthesised voice as feedback.

Powermate as awesome ergonomic left-hand scroller

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the market has missed the point with the Powermate. It is sold primarily as a volume control, but I've found that leaving it on the left side of the keyboard, with the left-right knob movement bound to arrow up/down makes for a more comfortable and ergonomic work environment. When scrolling through long webpages like slashdot, I can relax my (right) mouse hand and let my left hand use the knob to scroll up and down. It feels more natural than having two mice, as one can operate a knob just fine with no warmup (try left-handing a mouse immediately after using your right - it's hard for most). With the knob, switching back and forth between left and right hand scrolling is smooth and easy, no fumbling around. It works just fine in virtually every application without any special settings. Try scrolling with the Powermate, you'll like it!

So, here's my problem - I can't do this in Linux! There is a linux driver for the Powermate, but apparently it's only preconfigured use is as a volume control for XMMS, for which I could care less. If anyone has figured out how to bind the Powermate knob to keystrokes in Linux, please post some clues! I presume it would take a 2.4.x kernel (which has the Powermate driver built-in) and some X Windows config stuff to do the binding. Thanks!