Mark Semenenko
COM3600
18/10/2011
HUMAN INPUT DEVICES
Supervised by Steve Maddock
1. BRIEF HISTORY
Human input devices (HID) can be said to have originated with the type writer in 1860s, whilst not the first
machine to be able to print letters and words 1. It was the first of such devices to be manufactured
commercially. This lead to the invention of the keyboard at the advent of computing as a way of inputting
commands into computers with relative ease.
At first a typewriter was used to input commands onto magnetic tape which could be fed into a computer2. By
the late 1970s electronic keyboards were used by almost all computers. Since then many more input devices
have been invented.
In the 1960s the mouse and joystick were both invented and offered control over the x and y axes. Today the
mouse and keyboard are still the most commonly used input devices for everyday tasks, but for more specific
roles a plethora of other input devices exist including touch screens, touch pads, graphics tablets, web cams,
microphones, IR pointing devices such as the Wii remote controls, a wide variety of game pads and controllers
and many more.
2. INPUT DEVICES IN GAMES
In the video games industry there is also a wide variety of input devices which are used. The earliest consoles
used game pads to control many different genres of games and is still the most commonly used.
Over the years there have been a number of different controllers created specifically for games including
paddles, trackballs, joysticks, arcade-style joysticks, throttle quadrants, steering wheels, yokes, pedals, motion
sensing, light guns, dance pads, balance boards and rhythm controllers.
Aside from controllers designed specifically for controlling games, other input methods can also be used
including keyboard and mouse, touch screens, web cams and microphones.
Some of these control methods have had more success than others. For example arcade-style joysticks were
very popular, but with the decline in arcade style games they have become outdated. Light guns saw much use
in arcade and home use but are incompatible with the LCD, Plasma and LED televisions of today. Dance pads
have had success in both arcade and home use but as they are a niche controller used for only one genre of
game they are not as wide spread as game pads. It is clear that for an input device to be successful it must
have a wide variety of applications.
3. MICROSOFT KINECT
The Microsoft Kinect is a devices that incorporates a combination of different input devices; a web cam, a
microphone array and most interestingly; in infra-red depth camera. This follows the trend of computing input
devices in that it allows a user to interact with computers in an increasing number of ways. Whereas in the
beginning interfacing with a computer required you only to type commands into a keyboard to which the
computer would respond, using the Kinect’s sensor you it is now possible for users to interact with a computer
in a much more natural and more responsive way.
1
2
http://www.todayinsci.com/M/Mill_Henry/MillHenryPatents.htm
http://inventors.about.com/od/computerperipherals/a/computer_keyboa.htm
Mark Semenenko
COM3600
18/10/2011
Originally developed to control a games console in a number of ways, mostly to control an avatar visible on a
screen, the Kinect has also been used by third party developers to take control of a wide variety of different
programs3 or even robots4.
As in the previous two examples the utility of the Kinect doesn’t lie in the information captured by the Kinect
being displayed on the screen but instead lies with the functionality that can be obtained with regards to
motion capture. Previous optical systems for capturing movement would use markers that a user would wear
in order to track certain points on the body. This method also requires expensive camera equipment to be able
to record the information. The Kinect offers the first commercial, widely available way of doing this.
3
4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pPt_944t9Lc#t=30s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w8BmgtMKFbY