The Touchpad

Matthew Bacon reviews a PC replacement for your Atari - a mouse that is!

As most Atarians know, the original Atari mouse could not be considered the best design of its kind in the world. It was slow, unresponsive, not especially ergonomic, but nevertheless loved just the same. Since the time when Atari was one of only a handful of computer manufacturers to use a mouse within a GUI (amazing as this may seem!) "pointer device" technology has moved forward...

Pointing devices now come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, including trackballs, touchpads and much more besides. Over the years, the Atari platform has see quite a number of replacement mice, some good and some bad. Just before the Spring AMS 99 show in April my trusty mouse gave up the ghost so I took the opportunity to browse around the Atari stands to pick up a replacement.

My search took me to the ASP stand where I found two exciting products, the Touchpad and MouseBurSTer. Touchpad is a PC/serial replacement mouse with a difference. It employs the latest pointing technology, a touch sensitive pad approximately 4.5cm2, which translates movement (via your finger, pen or any other solid object) into cursor movement on screen. Although it does takes a little getting used too, the Touchpad is subsequently intuitive in use. You'll soon forget the days when you had to move your wrist and arm halfway across your desk just to move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other.

The touch pad not only registers movement but also mouse clicks. A single tap registers a single left mouse click while two taps in quick succession registers as a double-click. Alternatively to register mouse clicks you can use the three micro-switch buttons below the touch pad - whatever you're comfortable with. The left button acts as the left mouse button, the middle button acts as a double-left mouse click and the right button acts as the right mouse button.

Unlike a traditional mouse, the Touchpad doesn't have any rollers to get clogged up so it does not need any maintenance. Its small size and stationary location make it ideal for anyone with limited desktop space (mine sits quite happily above my disk drive) and anyone with small hands - such as children.

Only two things stopped me awarding the Touchpad a higher mark. 1) The high price (although there are plenty of cheaper and more expensive pointing devices on the market). 2) I found it to be rather cumbersome when using an art package or resource editor.
 

 Summary

 Product

The Touchpad

 Distributor

ASP 40 Evelin Road, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 1JR, England

 Requires

Mouse BurSTer

 Price

£17.00

 Pros

• Extremely smooth
• Saves work space
• Comfortable to use (ergonomically designed)
• Reduces repetitive hand movement around your work space

 Cons

• More expensive than a standard mouse
• Takes a while to get used to!

 Score

This article originally appeared in issue #15 of Atari Computing magazine and is reproduced with kind permission of Renegade Publishing.

MyAtari magazine - Review #3, October 2000