JPH07160396A - Pointing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a pointing device improved in operability when a tablet or a keyboard is attached to a remote controller and operated by the finger by forming a concave surface at the center part of a pressure-sensitive paper tablet. CONSTITUTION:A concave surface is formed at the center part of a pressure- sensitive tablet. In regard of the basic constitution of the concave tablet, a pressure-sensitive and conductive rubber sheet 25 is held between the electrode sheets 22 which contain the parallel electrodes 24 and 28 connected to the resistors 23 and 27 respectively. Furthermore these sheets 22 are held between the protecting insulator sheets 21 and 29. Thus the concave tablet has such a multilayer structure where each layer has a round hollow place. The electrodes 24 and 28 can be easily produced by a solid printing technique. Thus a pointing device applying a concave tablet is built into a keyboard and the tablet is operated by a thumb. Under such conditions, the operating force can be controlled more easily with the concave tablet than a plane tablet since the thumb is set in the lateral direction.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a pointing device for detecting a position pressed by a writing instrument, a finger or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a pointing device using a pressure-sensitive tablet uses a flat tablet. It was built into a keyboard or remote control to operate the cursor and input handwritten characters with writing instruments, fingers, etc. The pressure-sensitive tablet used at that time includes a pressure-sensitive conductive rubber tablet and the like. As a typical example, FIG.
The structure of the pressure-sensitive conductive rubber tablet described in JP-A-56-014383 will be briefly described with reference to. The pressure-sensitive conductive rubber tablet is sandwiched between the pressure-sensitive conductive rubber sheet 15 by the electrode sheets (12, 16) having resistors (13, 17) and a plurality of parallel electrodes (14, 18) connected thereto, and further. It has a multilayer structure sandwiched by protective insulating sheets (11, 19) from the outside.

[0003]

In the above-mentioned conventional flat type tablet, when the finger or the like is used to substitute for the mouse or the trackball, the pressing pressure is difficult to be constant and the operability is poor. is there. It is an object of the present invention to provide a pointing device with improved operability when the tablet is attached to a keyboard or a remote controller and operated with a finger.

[0004]

In order to solve the above problems, in the present invention, the central portion of the pressure-sensitive tablet is formed as a concave surface.

[0005]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a basic configuration diagram of the concave tablet of the present invention. The basic configuration is the same as the conventional example shown in FIG.
The pressure-sensitive conductive rubber sheet 25 is used as a resistor (23, 27).
And a plurality of parallel electrodes (24, 28) connected thereto are sandwiched by electrode sheets (22, 26), and a protective insulating sheet (21, 29) is sandwiched from the outside to have a multilayer structure. What is different from the conventional example is that all layers have a circular recess in the central portion. The parallel electrodes 24 and 28 can be easily manufactured using a three-dimensional printing technique.

The object of the present invention can be achieved by using other types of tablets such as a dos spacer type.

FIG. 3 is an external view when a pointing device using the concave tablet of the present invention is incorporated in a standard keyboard. The basic operating method (home position) of the keyboard assumes that the "J" key is pressed with the right index finger and the "F" key is pressed with the left index finger. By placing the concave tablet under the "Space" key and operating it with either the left or right thumb, key input is possible without disturbing the operation of other fingers.

In this case, the thumb faces sideways.
As shown in, the direction of the thumb and the direction in which force should be applied to the contact surface of the tablet match, so it is easy to control the amount of force applied.

[0010]

As described above, when the pointing device using the concave tablet of the present invention is incorporated into the keyboard, assuming that the tablet is operated with the thumb while keeping the hand at the home position, the thumb is lateral. Since it is facing toward, it is easier to control the force with a concave tablet than with a flat tablet. Further, since the height and the angle are different depending on the contact position of the tablet, there is an effect that the pressing position can be grasped intuitively without looking at it with the eyes. These effects can be expected when the concave tablet of the present invention is incorporated in a remote controller.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a pointing device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a structural example of a conventional pressure-sensitive conductive rubber tablet.

FIG. 3 is an external view when the present invention is incorporated in a standard keyboard.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing directions of forces when operating the pointing device of the present invention and the conventional pointing device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11, 19, 21, 29 Protective insulating sheet 12, 16, 22, 26 Electrode sheet 13, 17, 23, 27 Resistor 14, 18, 24, 28 Parallel electrode 15, 25 Pressure-sensitive conductive rubber sheet

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A pointing device characterized in that a central portion of a pressure-sensitive paper tablet is formed as a concave surface. 2. The pressure-sensitive tablet includes a first protective insulating sheet, a rectangular resistor layer provided on one side of an upper portion of the sheet, and a plurality of one ends connected to a long side of the resistor layer. A first electrode sheet provided with a linear electrode, a conductive sheet, and a linear electrode having the same configuration as the first electrode sheet
A pointing device, which is a pressure-sensitive tablet in which a second electrode sheet provided in a direction orthogonal to the linear electrodes of the electrode sheet and a second protective insulating sheet are laminated in this order. 3. The pointing device according to claim 1, wherein the concave surface is spherical.