JP3158426B2 - pointing device - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a pointing device used as an input device such as a computer terminal.

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional technique will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 17 is an overall view showing a general system of a personal computer, 3 is a laptop type personal computer, 1 is a display, 2 is a keyboard having cursor keys 31, 5 is a mouse connector 4.
The mouse is a type of input device (called a pointing device) for moving a cursor on the display 1 connected to the personal computer 3.

The operation of the mouse 5 will be described with reference to the block circuit diagram of FIG. 19. When the mouse 5 is moved on a desk and the rotating ball portion 39 is rotated, the rotation direction and the rotation amount are detected by the rotation sensors 37 and 3.
8 detects and outputs it as data of the mouse 5.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention However, the miniaturization of the device main body 3 such as a personal computer and space saving have progressed, and the pointing device as a peripheral device has also been required to be miniaturized. In the case of the mouse 5 as the above-mentioned conventional pointing device, a mechanism for detecting the movement distance of the mouse 5 itself requires a space in which the mouse 5 can be freely moved.

Also, as shown in FIG. 18, a dedicated mouse connector 4 and interface circuit 7 are required on the device body 3 side, which hinders miniaturization of the device. In particular, a laptop-type personal computer or the like has a problem in that the frequent carrying of the device makes the attached devices more obstructive.

A cursor key 31 is provided on the keyboard 2 and is used for pointing. However, the cursor key 31 cannot perform fine pointing,
It could only be moved horizontally.

An object of the present invention is to solve such a conventional problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide an excellent pointing device which has the same function as the mouse 5 and can save space.

Means for Solving the Problems A plurality of contacts are provided on the circumference, the angle of the contact in the ON state is calculated based on the coordinate position of the contact in the ON state, and this is used as data of the moving direction, and the time of the ON state is calculated. It has a mouse function of outputting as movement time data by measuring, and can be switched to a function of a cursor key by an arbitrary switching means.

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a pointing device that does not require a moving space such as a mouse.

Embodiment One embodiment of the pointing device of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

According to the drawing, reference numeral 13 denotes a push button, which is supported by a rubber spring 12 having a cup shape. The push button 13 has a circumferential projection 13d, under which a continuous contact 11b on the circumference and a contact 10a shown in FIG. 4 opposed thereto are arranged on the circumference.

Reference numeral 10 denotes a lower sheet on the substrate 9 on which the contacts 10a are formed, 11 denotes an upper sheet on which the contacts 11b are formed, and 11c denotes a spacer. Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described with reference to the contact block diagram of FIG.

A description will be given of the case where the circuit is composed of 24 contacts 10a as shown in FIG. Note that the number of the contact points 10a is not limited to 24 and may be an arbitrary number. The greater the number, the higher the accuracy of the directional component. In the case of FIG. 4, 24 contacts 10a
Are provided at equal intervals, so that each angle of the contact point 10a is 15 °. When the contact 10a and the contact 11b are turned on by tilting the push button 13 provided with the circumferential projection 13d, the control means 24 scans at a fixed interval using the pointing scan means 23 to turn on the contacts 10a and 11b. Detect the state.
Further, when the control means 24 recognizes the ON state, it calculates a direction component. This is shown in FIG. 6, where the X and Y coordinate positions (x,
y) The angle θ from the center is determined and used as direction component data. Next, the control means starts the timer from the point of recognition of ON, measures the ON time,
This is defined as a distance component. Then, the direction component and the distance component are converted into the format of the mouse data by using the mouse data conversion means 28 and output from the mouse data output means 30.
As described above, according to the above-described embodiment, the contact 10a is arranged on the circumference and converted into mouse data according to the position and time of the pressed contact 10a, so that the space required at the time of operation is only the space of the switch itself. There is an advantage that it is sufficient and space can be saved. In addition, it is inexpensive because it is composed of only the upper sheet 11 and the lower sheet 10 of the contacts 10a and 11b.
Reference numerals 32 and 33 denote mouse switches for giving instructions to a personal computer (not shown) provided integrally with the pointing device.

FIG. 7 shows another embodiment, in which a pointing device according to the present invention is installed in a laptop personal computer main body 3. In this embodiment, since it is directly attached to the laptop type personal computer main body 3, the conventional mouse connector 4 is used.
In addition, since a cable or the like connecting the pointing device to the personal computer becomes unnecessary, the cost is further reduced.

Here, in the pointing device of the present invention, a process when a plurality of contacts 10a and 11b are turned on is shown in FIG.
This will be described in detail with reference to FIG. In the description, the contacts 10a and 11b constituting the switch are generically described as a pointing matrix 21. 8 and 9, the contacts turned on with the contact 11b are designated as 34a, 34b and 34c.
Assume that the angles of the respective contacts are θ ₁ , θ ₂ , θ ₃ . First, the case where the two contacts are on will be described with reference to FIG. The control means 24 checks the pointing matrix 21 and detects the ON contact 10a. The two ON contacts 10a calculate respective angles θ ₁ and θ ₂ . And then average the two angles and get 2
The direction component when the contact is turned on. That is, θ = (θ ₁ +
θ ₂ ) / 2. Next, the case where the three contacts 10a are on will be described with reference to FIG. As in the above case, the angles θ ₁ , θ ₂ , θ ₃ of the respective ON contacts 10a are calculated. Then, the average (middle) value is used as the direction component when the three contacts are turned on. From θ ₁ = θ ₂ −15 ° and θ ₃ = θ ₂ + 15 °, θ =
(Θ ₁ + θ ₂ + θ ₃ ) / 3 = θ ₂ . In the case of four or more, calculation is performed in the same manner as in the above method. Here, the above process is a process when a plurality of adjacent contacts 10a are pressed, and when a plurality of distant contacts 10a are pressed, data creation is not performed until the state is released. By performing this processing, an effect is obtained that the direction can be determined with twice the number of contacts.

Next, another embodiment in which a cursor key function is added to the pointing device will be described with reference to FIGS. 10 and 11 are explanatory diagrams of blocking of switch contacts, and FIG. 12 is an upper side of a cursor key on a keyboard.
FIG. 13 is an overall top view in which a pointing device is installed on a keyboard.

The keyboard 2 is usually provided with four-directional cursor keys 31 and allows a certain amount of pointing. However, the cursor key 31 can be made unnecessary by providing the pointing device of the present invention with a cursor function, so that the pointing device can be installed at the position where the cursor key 31 was. First, the cursor function will be described with reference to FIG. In the case of 24 contacts similar to the above embodiment, each contact 10a is classified into four. Each axis is divided into five blocks, each of which corresponds to the top, bottom, left and right of the cursor key 31, and these are referred to as an upper block 16, a right block 17, a lower block 18, and a left block 19 for convenience. At this time, contacts 10a in 45 °, 135 °, 225 °, and 315 ° directions
Is ignored even if it is turned on. For example, if any one of the five contacts of the upper block 16 is turned on, the data of the upper cursor key 31a is output. The same applies to other blocks. Here, each block is composed of five contacts, but it may be composed of three contacts as shown in FIG. At this time, a contact that is not classified into each block may be ignored, or may be newly blocked and processed. For example, when the contact point of the block between the upper block 16a and the right block 17a is turned on, two data, the data of the upper cursor key 31a and the data of the right cursor key 31c, are output. During the repeat operation, two data are alternately output. As a result, an effect is obtained that the cursor keys can be used as pseudo eight-direction cursor keys. As a method for switching between the cursor function and the mouse function, a dedicated switch (not shown) may be provided, or means for switching by pressing a plurality of keys on the keyboard 2 at the same time may be provided. By adding a cursor function as in the above embodiment, a cursor key 31 can be provided in a laptop computer, especially a notebook-type personal computer, without losing the current function and space in an ultra-compact and space-capable device. Since it can be used as a mouse 5 as well, it becomes a multifunctional device.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of the control unit of the above embodiment. The operation of this control unit will be described. Reference numeral 20 denotes a keyboard matrix of the keyboard 2, which presses the keyboard 2 to turn on the keyboard 2;
22 is used to recognize this ON state. Further, the data is converted into a keyboard data format using the keyboard data conversion means 26 and output from the keyboard data output means 29. In addition, the pointing matrix 21 is
When the push contact is turned on by tilting
The control unit 24 detects the ON state of the contact using the pointing scan unit 23, and performs switching to convert to cursor data output or mouse data output by the selection unit 25. In the case of conversion into cursor data output, block conversion described in FIGS. 10 and 11 is performed, the data is converted into the format of cursor data using the cursor data conversion means 27, and output from the keyboard data output means 29. In the case of mouse data output, the direction component and the distance component are converted into a mouse data format by using a mouse data conversion means 28 and output from a mouse data output means 30.

FIG. 15 shows another embodiment of the control unit in FIG. The all data output means 35 unifies the keyboard data (including cursor data) output means 29 and the mouse data output means 30. Since the cursor data and the mouse data include the identification signal of the data or the bits included in the data so that they can be identified by the main body, the main body can be easily identified. Therefore, in this embodiment, the internal circuit is simplified.

In the above embodiment, two mouse switches 32 and 33 are provided, but the number may be any number. FIG. 16 shows an embodiment having no mouse switch. In this case, a key switch on the keyboard 2 can be used instead of the mouse switch. For example, there are a method of pressing two arbitrary keys at the same time, and a method of disabling keyboard input and using a mouse switch when using a mouse function. As a result, a margin is provided on the keyboard 2 and it becomes possible to increase the number of keys having new functions. Also, the conventional mouse 5 lacks versatility because the number of mouse switches is fixed, but in the above embodiment, any number of mouse switches can be set, so that various application software can be supported and versatility is expanded. It has the effect of. Although the moving amount is fixed in the above embodiment, the moving amount calculating means may include a means for changing the calculation of the moving amount by providing an arbitrary switching means. For example, a dedicated changeover switch may be provided, and the amount of movement may be changed stepwise each time the switch is pressed, the amount of movement may be changed only while the switch is being pressed, or the amount of movement may be changed at an accelerated rate. .
In addition, when it is installed on the keyboard 2, any key of the keyboard can be used as a switching means.
The effect is obtained that the moving amount according to various application software can be set freely.

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION A plurality of contacts are arranged on a circumference, and a mouse function for converting and outputting data of a direction and a movement amount calculated based on a position and a time of a contact in an on state to mouse data is provided. Since the function of the cursor key can be switched by the switching means, the space required at the time of operation is sufficient only by the space of the pointing device itself, and has an advantage that the space can be saved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

1 is a circuit block diagram of a control unit of the pointing device of the present invention, FIG. 2 (a) is a side sectional view of the push button switch, and FIG. 2 (b) is an enlarged side sectional view of a main part of the push button switch. FIGS. 3 and 4 are side sectional views of the push button switch when operated, FIG. 4 is a top view of a contact on a lower sheet which is a main part of the push button switch, and FIG. 5 is a pointing device provided with a mouse switch. FIG. 6 is a top view of the contacts on the lower sheet for explaining the operation of the pointing device of the present invention shown in FIG. 1, and FIG. 7 is a personal computer provided with the pointing device of the present invention. FIGS. 8 and 9 are top views of one embodiment, and FIGS.
FIGS. 10 and 11 are explanatory views for explaining that the contacts on the lower sheet are blocked for explaining another embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 12 is a top view of cursor keys on a keyboard.
FIG. 13 is an overall top view of a keyboard in which the functions of the cursor keys of FIG. 12 are added to a pointing device, and FIGS.
FIG. 15 is a circuit block diagram of another embodiment of the control unit of the pointing device of the present invention, FIG. 16 is a top view of another embodiment of a keyboard using the pointing device of the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 18 is an overall view for explaining a system of a personal computer using a mouse as a pointing device, FIG. 18 is a block diagram thereof, and FIG. 19 is a block circuit diagram for explaining the same operation. 21 pointing matrix, 23 pointing scanning means, 24 control means, 28 mouse data conversion means.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Takayuki Akiyama 1006 Kazuma Kadoma, Kadoma-shi, Osaka Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-59-184936 (JP, A) JP-A-2- 244197 (JP, A) JP-A-1-185714 (JP, A) JP-A-2-210522 (JP, A) JP-A-61-155948 (JP, U) JP-A 64-31435 (JP, U) (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 3/03-3/033 A63F 13/00-13/12

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] A pointing matrix comprising at least a plurality of contacts arranged on a circumference; a button provided with a circumferential pressing projection for turning on the plurality of contacts of the pointing matrix; Pointing scanning means for detecting the ON state of the plurality of contacts by scanning the contacts, and when the new state change is detected by the scan, the button is pressed from the coordinate position of the contact that has become ON. Control means for calculating the direction of movement and the amount of movement from the time of the ON state, and a mouse function comprising a mouse data conversion means for converting the data of the direction and the amount of movement into mouse data and outputting the mouse data. Means for blocking the plurality of contacts of the pointing matrix in at least four directions, When a new state change is detected by the scan, the direction in which the button is pressed is calculated from the coordinate position of the blocked contact point in the ON state, and the data in this direction is converted into cursor data and output. A pointing device capable of switching to a function of a cursor key composed of cursor data conversion means.