P2 needs a better mouse?


MrConfusion

Very Active Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2013
Messages
331
After using the Pandora for PC and Amiga games emulation for a while one thing has become obvious: The Pandora could do with a better mouse "emulator".

The touchscreen is more like a digitizer with it's absolute coordinates and though, in theory, such devices are OK for mouse emulation, in practice they aren't that great. Besides, reaching for the pen is a pain and using your thumb gets the screen all greasy.

The nubs are not exactly "great" or "wonderful" for mouse emulation, unless you are used to gaming on an IBM Thinkpad :rolleyes: .

With the P1 I think I'll try with a trackball and if that feels nice, I'll try to track down a small, "traveling" trackball.

But if a P2 came out, what could it have to alleviate this problem? I know of only three possible candidates, all of which are... well...:

Trackpad (yech... never liked them for gaming, ever...)

Trackball (constant maintenance, takes huge amounts of space :-()

Gyroscopes (never tried gyromice in my life, so don't know how well that would work)

Or am I simply the only one suffering from the problem, because most games I play are "mouse heavy"?

(And the ones that aren't tend to be "keyboard and digital stick is enough"... which the Pandora seems to do quite nicely, although you need to plan and remap keys etc. ;) )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
A touch screen can be more effective than a mouse when you need to do mostly clicks in absolute spots. But when you need relative movement, not absolute, it is indeed not very usable.

I don't like trackpads and trackballs. Nubs are not ideal either to replace a mouse, but it's not bad.

I don't think anything in the handheld form factor can fully replace an actual mouse. So I guess the best solution is to use an external USB or bluetooth mouse.
 
I am seriously hoping that Valve proves everyone wrong and that "trackpad as game controller" is demonstrably viable and good. That would solve the mouse problem.

Alternatively adding a mouse nub or mini trackball would be possible but we'd have to sacrifice some space, and unless it is right in the middle we're encouraging right or left handedness and I don't think we should be doing that: keep the Pandora as symmetrical as possible.
 
True mousing on the Pandora needs both a hub and the mouse. I have an old Logitech traveller, a small mouse which I prefer whenever I play games... but that means both poor ergonomics and wire spaghetti for the Pandora...

Actually, these days I often game with a trackball. I learned to use them, then slowly like them when I had to use one to alleviate wrist pains while working.

But trackballs need to be big to work in gaming.

The regular Logitech ones are OK for most work and anything "relaxed and turn based", but when accuracy and speed are needed you need a big (i.e. Kensington) trackball. That thing is several times the size of a Pandora, though... and yet, at least for me, that is needed for something like shooters to be fully enjoyable.

Any ball that isn't about the size of a tip of a mans thumb I dismiss outright :( . Which means the P2 would have extra thickness to house it. Which combined with what you said about the handedness and with the fact that aside from people with wrist strain injuries like myself, you kind of tend to view trackballs as "soooo last century" :) ... dead end there.

One thing might be doable, though; some early laptops had a "attachment" mechanism for attaching a trackball to both the right or left side of the laptop...

Maybe the P2 could have some suitably generic "rail" on which you could hack some attachments of your own? At least in my case it might not be just a trackball, for some games I could do with a really small numeric keypad too. If there was also an interface for connecting input devices with suitable specs/wiring, people could DIY these attachments with little more than a soldering iron, parts from an old calculator and a piece of wood.

I don't know how this would work in practice, but it crossed my mind just now, when I recalled how the "handedness" problem was solved back in the 90's.

So, has anyone moused with a gyroscope using system?

Making that comfortable might be a challenge too, if you need to be able to hold the "mouse" still for a while?
 
There was some discussion about making the nubs socketable. If that were the case it'd be trivial to pull a nub out and replace it with a trackball. Wouldn't even require a change to the software.
 
There was some discussion about making the nubs socketable. If that were the case it'd be trivial to pull a nub out and replace it with a trackball. Wouldn't even require a change to the software.
Except that the trackball might be too big; if the bottom half of the ball is at level with the motherboard, the upper side would have to start from a little big higher than the highest spot of the nub. Your thumb would be quite high during operation. Uncomfortable. The lid would no longer close. The motherboard would need to have a hole in it to accomodate. You end up with a thicker Pandora again...

Other than that I like this idea!

You could mix and match your own controls.

The "peripheral rail" on the side of the Pandora might be interesting, though, now that I've given it some more thought. I think I've seen suitable connector/attachment combinations in industrial electronics. Stuff that slides in place, locks in place and has some contacts to allow data to flow. You could buy the connectors for your Pandora, then build whatever you like. Kinda like built in Arduino, only more specific (i.e. targeted at making controllers) and most of all; durable.

But, of course, that could be expensive to add and it would definitely add a bit of weight and size (secure locking implies metal parts, ready made parts made for industrial use are unlikely to be "lightweight" or "slim"). Anything on the sides would also hinder thumb typing, but these are add-on devices that can be removed, so maybe not such a big deal?

(

Also, based on this idea I think I might have an idea I want to try with the current Pandora; I have one of those very old laptop trackballs lying around, salvaged from an old laptop. I need to check whether that thing is PS/2 and if it is, I could, with the aid of plex plastic and velcro, add a smallish trackball to the side of the Pandora (I got PS/2 --> USB adapters and everything else I need for this... the only problem is whether the circuit board for the trackball is PS/2 despite the totally proprietary connectors). Hmmm... actually, if I recall right, the trackball is mechanical, not optical... which means, it sucks... but maybe this is one of those holidayprojects even if it is doomed to fail :huh:

)
 
One of the ICP2 alternatives that I bought uses two 'joysticks' (positioned and used just like the Pandora's nubs) and the shoulder buttons for mouse functions. The left joystick does coarse movement - fast over the screen. The right does fine movement - a few pixels at a time. That works great for menus and OS and selecting icons. Not so much for any form of mouse driven gaming.

How about a very far fetched alternative using lasers and a camera module?

Laser through a complex prism fires out of the bottom of the pandora to apply a pattern to the ground, desk, back of the person in front of you on the subway. Camera takes low resolution pictures at 120+fps. Movement of the Pandora relative to the scenery behind it - using the laser dots as landmarks to determine fine movement such that moving the Pandora 5" is like moving the mouse over the surface of a mouse pad. OK - so maybe too many things have to be invented to do that.

Alternatively, we could put an accelerometer/compass/tilt unit into the Pandora successor and track the unit's movements. Tilt 0*-45* as non-linear mouse movement - the more it tilts the faster the mouse moves until at 45* it's as if the thing is like a mouse on a 100mph treadmill.
 
For mouse heavy PC and amiga games I'd recommend using a bluetooth mouse, this one works well for me.
 
Trackballs come in many shapes and sizes
I'm sure we could find something accommodating. This is also for a P2, additional space in the case might be possible if it's designed for it from the start.
Well, yeah, but...

Any ball that isn't about the size of a tip of a mans thumb I dismiss outright :( .
... quoting myself from earlier post, so this was my opinion only, of course :rolleyes: .

I dug up the old trackball I mentioned above from the junkboxes. The ball itself is only slightly smaller than the Pandora is thick (screen included) and I remember trying to play the PC version of Elvira 1 with this trackball. The electronics add to the size. It was basically impossible to be good enough in Elvira with this thing (compared with using a mouse) and all you had to do was hit two square boxes for two different attacking/blocking types (quite why they added so much reaction based action into a game that was in every other way a pretty slow paced game I never figured out...).

Point being: adding a gimmick does no good. I'm not saying outright that small trackballs would not work (trackballs these days are often optical, for starters...), but I have to say based on previous experience I'm a bit skeptical of the added benefit when compared with the existing nubs. It would definitely need practical testing...

This probably comes through like I'm just here to complain about the world in general :) .

Mr_Loon: Thanks for that post, because I had forgotten I already have a bluetooth mouse :blink: . It's amazing how you forget all the useless junk that gets bought on a whim and tried only once... I'll try that with the Pandora as soon as I can find it, but even if I now get rid of the wire spaghetti there is the final problem: a mouse needs some space, i.e. a desk. And if I got a desk I might just as well have a laptop on it...

Grench: Tilting (i.e. gyroscopes) might indeed be an interesting take on this and once I've given some thought today... Since I've never used them for something like this I'm only wondering about how "steady" you then have to hold the device to keep the mouse still etc. what kinds of solutions have other manufacturers come up with? I can't recall I've ever seen a pointer being moved with tilt controls and such. I saw early smartphones with tilt sensors and they always "controlled" something else... closest was the bar in a "breakout" clone and it was quite tricky (and fatiguing for your arms) to keep that bar still.

Actually doesn't the Wii controller have this and isn't it also bluetooth? Maybe that could be taped even to the bottom of a current Pandora for testing... Hmmmmm... that's a thought...

As for your other suggestion... this sounds like a "headmouse", but for a "front facing" camera? Quite an idea :wacko: . I actually tried using headmouse software once... it was... an interesting experiment. I think it is probably like a trackball in the sense that you really need to use it for a while to get used to it and even longer to start liking it. A headmouse, of course, would not work with the Pandora, because the Pandora (thus a possible webcam) moves around. So your idea of reversing the whole idea is quite devious, actually... why move your head, when you can move the webcam :D . Prototyping that might be quite possible with just a USB webcam, I think... it is no small task, though: headtracking software needs a lot of work to be any good.

But still, very interesting idea. Without the laserstuff it would also be "economical", because I expect some people would want to have a camera in any case...

I'm also interested in anything I could build and encase on a small piece of plexplastic and vecro to the bottom of the current Pandora to try with. So now there's two such ideas: the trackball I already have and a Wii controller for gyroscopes (assuming that thing can be paired with anything other than a Wii... heck... assuming it's even bluetooth to begin with...). It's starting to look like my wife will get to complain about me dremeling transparent plastic on the kitchen table soon again :p . Though currently I'm cursing myself for throwing away that laptop's motherboard... it's hard now to even see how to power up this little trackball...
 
trackballs these days are often optical, for starters...
The Blackberry trackball is magnetic, actually, using a hall effect sensor to produce a variable voltage depending on direction and how rapid the rotation is. It's actually surprisingly good for being so small, you can calibrate it for very precise movement when it is going slow and rapid movement when rotated faster. It's definitely worth a try if you can find one.That being said, it probably wouldn't be suitable for gaming: it's a great desktop mouse replacement only. You can drag it around and click it fairly easily but if you need to make reactionary movements you'll probably be disappointed.
 
One of the ICP2 alternatives that I bought uses two 'joysticks' (positioned and used just like the Pandora's nubs) and the shoulder buttons for mouse functions. The left joystick does coarse movement - fast over the screen. The right does fine movement - a few pixels at a time. That works great for menus and OS and selecting icons. Not so much for any form of mouse driven gaming.
For the last couple of weeks I've been using AB Mouse with right nub for coarse movement and left nub for fine movement. It seems to be working quite well for desktop mouse use.
 
One of the ICP2 alternatives that I bought uses two 'joysticks' (positioned and used just like the Pandora's nubs) and the shoulder buttons for mouse functions. The left joystick does coarse movement - fast over the screen. The right does fine movement - a few pixels at a time. That works great for menus and OS and selecting icons. Not so much for any form of mouse driven gaming.
For the last couple of weeks I've been using AB Mouse with right nub for coarse movement and left nub for fine movement. It seems to be working quite well for desktop mouse use.
Exactly - but I wouldn't want to try to use that setup for an FPS.
 
Why does a mouse work so well for looking around in an FPS? Seems like a joystick ought to work, but it doesn't quite for some reason.
 
Direct linear movement: you move the mouse and the character looks proportional to how much and how fast you moved it. A joystick is relative movement: the character looks and keeps on looking at a speed proportional to where the joystick is.

With a mouse, if I just want to move a tiny amount you move that tiny amount and stop. With a joystick you move the stick some amount, wait for a period of time, and then release. With the mouse there is only one variable to control and it is easy to become proficient through trial and error as to how to control that one variable; your brain will instinctively start doing it on instinct. With a joystick there are two (position and time to wait) and if one is wrong then the other will need to change. It's more complex, and harder for your brain to turn it into an instinct. It CAN make an instinct out of it, but it's more challenging and there's more room for error.

There's also the issue that moving the mouse is instant whereas a joystick necessarily has some wait to it while your character turns. In something like a flight sim where there's a physical requirement to wait (because planes don't turn instantly) the relative controls of a joystick make sense, but in FPSs where heads effectively turn instantly a mouse gives a 1:1 mapping of motion that is easy for our brains to figure out.
 
Grench: Tilting (i.e. gyroscopes) might indeed be an interesting take on this and once I've given some thought today... Since I've never used them for something like this I'm only wondering about how "steady" you then have to hold the device to keep the mouse still etc. what kinds of solutions have other manufacturers come up with? I can't recall I've ever seen a pointer being moved with tilt controls and such. I saw early smartphones with tilt sensors and they always "controlled" something else... closest was the bar in a "breakout" clone and it was quite tricky (and fatiguing for your arms) to keep that bar still.
That having to hold it perfectly steady to the point of fatigue is likely due to the game using a linear response. My solution would be to have something more like a log based response. Fine movements are very fine - sharp movements are very sharp. I.e. tilting 0-5* would be just a few pixels per second of mouse movement. Tilting 20* would be hundreds. Tilting 45* would be thousands. Joysticks (and even mice) can be converted to this type of response based on position (joystick) and non-linear response to speed (mouse).
 
I am seriously hoping that Valve proves everyone wrong and that "trackpad as game controller" is demonstrably viable and good. That would solve the mouse problem.
Except it wouldn't. The trackpad on the Steam Controller is concave, so just the pad itself is already taking up more room. Next, the reason these trackpads supposedly are able to work so well is because of very complex haptics. That's going to take up a lot of room as well. If this trackpad solution does turn out to be successful, I don't see it being shrunk to a handheld form factor until we are ready for a Pandora 3, and only if someone who puts a lot of money into research for their handhelds (like Nintendo or Sony) worked towards such a solution. Remember, everybody has been saying "this is nothing like regular trackpads."

-God Ginrai
 
Point taken. If it's all the same to you I'll maintain optimism that there'll still be something that can be learned and used if it turns out to be highly successful, we just won't know what exactly until the time comes.

And the whole thing could flop anyway rendering the discussion moot.
 
Back
Top