Touch-sensitve scrolling for a mouse?

ShadowTech

ShadowTech

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Just something I was thinking about today:
You know how the trackpad on the iBook and PowerBook allows you to scroll very smoothly, in say, Safari?
And on the otherhand when you use a mouse with a scrollwheel it's somewhat jerky?

Well I was wondering if anyone knows of a mouse that uses a touch-sensative "scrollpad" instead of a wheel on a mouse.
Maybe it's just me, but I think that would be really cool.
 
AFAIK, there are no such things. It's a good idea, and it's been a long time coming, IMO, but the industry seems happy with wheels. This is one reason I was disappointed with Apple's Might Mouse.

But personally, I think an even better way to do it is to use the mouse itself for scrolling, with a button (maybe on the side for thumb access) to toggle between scroll mode and normal mode. It just seems ridiculous to make me use a small, imprecise, 1-dimensional controller when I'm already holding a large, precise, 2-dimensional controller. Apple addressed the 1-dimension limitation with the MM, but it still leaves a lot to be desired.
 
Hmm...interesting.
Yeah, I didn't think anything like I imagined actually existed.
Now if there was someway to mod a mouse with a trackpad from either an old iBook or a broken iPod - anything with some kind of a touch-sensitive scrolling device - I'd be on it ASAP!

UPDATE:
One kind of technology that could possibly be incorporated is this, from MicroNav. It supports 360 degree touch-sesitivity, so in a sense it could work like the Mighty Mouse ball, but the main difference is there would be no moving parts and of course you wouldn't have to put up with choppy scrolling.
http://www.micronavlink.com/micronav360.html
 
The scroll pad is a good idea. I'd like it to be more responsive - to allow a user to lightly touch it the way that the second generation iPods function. Instead, it asks that I press firmly on it to make it function. This makes scrolling laborious and takes more focus and determination than I'm used to with a scroll wheel.
Click to expand...
That's from one of the reviews on Amazon.com
It LOOKS just like I had imagined such a device to work. Instead it seems to work in a different way.

Although, the one by Fujitsu appears to be what I'm looking for. Only problem is I'm not too sure if it supports Mac, and its only in PS/2.

I can still dream!
 
PS/2 is virtually identical to USB with the exception of the physical plug itself. A simple PS/2-to-USB adaptor would work fine for that mouse.

"Supporting Mac" isn't an issue -- it's a piece of hardware, and contains no PC-specific or Mac-specific ROM. Whether they offer SOFTWARE support for that mouse under OS X is a different story (they probably don't), but there's always USBOverdrive to help.
 
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