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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.
knob...can give us quite some feeling...
I think I already have one of those.
"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.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Wow! Knobs are useful? I never would have thought..(/sarcasm)
I only have 16 knobs attached to my PC via USB/Midi.
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?
Take off every sig. For great justice.
I think Solitare is on channel 4...
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
We went from knobs that were attatched to our televisions to buttons that evolved by having remotes and such.
So today I look at this and I see, the knob but for computers of today and I ask myself, is this proof that old but simple technology is still useful today even though we evolved and changed the standard from knobs to buttons/touchpads/screens
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 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!
The PowerMate is rather pricy at 40 dollars. Is it any good?
It's OK. Nicely machined, sexy looking, works under Linux but certainly not worth $40. I've bought more useful gadgets for a lot less.
It's one of those things you initially think will be great, but one day, in an idle moment you look at it and think: I haven't touched that device in 6 months. And then you think about selling it on eBay, but never quite get round to it.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
My monitor goes all the way to 11!
Er, 12 actually.
I wonder if Griffin would consider starting building keyboards with integrated knobs, alongside or in place of numeric keypads?
Y'know what'd be better - Apple putting the (presumably patented, since we haven't seen it on anyone else's hardware) iPod scroll wheel into a keyboard or even on a standalone USB panel. As several have said, it's more usable than anything else because you can scroll long lists without repeatedly removing your finger. Physically grasping and moving a Griffin Powermate involves reconfiguring the way you're moving your hands and they can't be continuously spun as easily as the iPod wheel.
The Apple mouse continues to live without a scroll wheel though, which is, IMO, a much needed addition (FYI, I was under the opinion that moving from the 5 buttons of my Razer Boomslang to the 1 button Apple mouse would never work, and I've got them both hooked in now - I never use the Razer and the only bit I miss is the scrollwheel. All the other functions can be achieved more quickly with one hand hitting hotkeys on the keyboard as I click). I really miss a useful scrolling tool on my mac, and a nice little touchwheel on the edge of the keyboard would be quick, simple and fluid to use while I'm typing.
That's an interesting idea. According to this article, Apple did not invent the iPod scroll wheel though. Apparently it was designed by Synaptics.
Apple does, however, have a patent that covers mice with a rotary dial.
The Contour ShuttlePro is nicer. My stepdad, a retired cinematographer and photographer, is into video editing and uses one on his PC. All the buttons and the wheel itself are programmable and so forth. Definitely worth the ~$100US price tag IMHO, if you're constantly editing video. It should be quite nice for gaming as well, though I haven't tried it for that yet.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Oh man, that would be perfect for playing Pong.
If you think about it, the major innovations in computer interfacing hardware have pretty much been the keyboard, the mouse, and the mouse wheel.. Not too much to it. I can't help but wonder if there's space for more to come along.
I think the iPod's new touch wheel that also tilts around is pretty snazzy. Imagine if they put one of those suckers on your laptop right next to the regular touch pad. "Turn the wheel" to scroll around, do so while pushing down on the right side to switch applications, press up or down on it to scroll a page at a time... Maybe I'm dreaming again, but I think it's a pretty versatile control system that really isn't used to its full potential.
In the field I work in (synthesizers), the perceptive nature of our customers (musicians) when relating to a user interface is indeed a tricky and wonderful force to behold. Rotary knobs, and the general 'feel' of a system as a result of simple interface kinetics, is fairly well-established in this field.
I've always viewed the standard computer interface (keyboard/mouse) as being curiously unburdened by progress and change; you cannot say the same for the synth business, where there is no one standard for how you ought to use knobs.
I've got two PowerMates, both on each side of an Apple extended keyboard, they are without doubt among the most precious peripheral I have on my desk. I've also got a couple of faderfox boxes, an LV1 and an LX1, which are also awesome primary/secondary interfaces, as well offering endless rotaries for various nefarious uses..
The attempt by Microsoft to commodotize their 'peripheral assets' (MS Natural keyboard) while providing pitiful support (beyond HID) for application authors, and the tendency of other interface mfr's to vector off into 'cool but ultimately useless plastic hack' (anyone remember the Cyberman?) is fairly common. Once again, its all about the operating system.
But you know, if you want to know more about endless uses for rotary knobs, look no further than the audio/synth/pro-media tool markets. Especially of the 80's and 90's
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Phidgets (http://www.phidgets.com/) is something that has recently become extremely cheap and accessible to software guys like me who HATE hardware. Phidgets make it really easy to build physical user interfaces (think nobs, switches, pressure sensors, etc.) without needing to do any hardware stuff yourself.
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They are extremely easy to use, as you can see by these undergrad projects (http://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/phidgets/galler
Full disclosure: I am a member of the lab from which this stuff was developed.