[aaron695]

Computers still only have three mainstream input devices, keyboard, mouse and gamepad after 60-80 years

I'd try and bring the addition inputs a smart phone has to computers, like touch.

I know there are programable keyboards and many other things. But no one has cracked it yet.

It's a cool project as is. Just an idea if you were thinking of iterating forward.

[Kerrick]

I collect and use as many input devices as I can, as a bit of a hobby. It all started when I was younger and got a CueCat. Now I’m up to webcams, microphones, fingerprint sensors, many keyboards, mice, trackpads, trackballs, many game pads, MakeyMakey, a VR system, CharaChorder, MIDI keyboard, floor dance pad, Wacom tablet, BlackMagic keyboard with jog shuttle, and HOTaS. I’ve still got my eye on a macro pad, MIDI Fighter, and a racing wheel.

[myself248]

Heyyy, CueCat club! Funny that QR codes are everywhere these days and people actually scan them; Digital Convergence was just ahead of their time.

I have keyboards with mag-stripe readers, keyboards with smart-card readers, keyboards with assignable and relegendable keys (meant for point-of-sale usage), 6DOF 3D "SpaceMouse" devices, a 5-axis Lexip Pu94 mouse, I've mapped an R/C quadcopter transmitter into a wireless joystick [1], and last year I finally bought my first USB gamepad. (To play Stray.)

I was recently digging into some details of the BlackMagic keyboard and it sounds like it's super difficult to remap the jog dial for other uses, what do you use yours for?

1: https://hackaday.io/page/11784-rc-transmitter-tx-as-a-virtua...

[Kerrick]

I use mine for the most boring possible answer: exactly what it was marketed for. I edit videos in DaVinci Resolve with it. :-)

[landtuna]

I had a boss who was pretty excited about CueCat. It's funny that it took another 15 years to catch on as smartphones and QR codes!

[jvm___]

I picture you having them all hooked up at once, one-man band style.

[Kerrick]

I actually do have many of them attached at once. I have an extra-wide desk and two PCIe expansion cards that provide 7 USB ports each, with their own USB controllers to solve bandwidth/timing issues.

[ericrallen]

There are lots of computers with touch capabilities out there.

From the gesture support on Apple’s trackpads to touch screens like the Surface (and plenty of other laptops with touch screens).

There are also stylus inputs and things like Wacom tablets that have been around for many years now.

[kedean]

There's also microphones and cameras that can act as inputs, it just turns out they don't offer much power over kb/m.

But really, the problem being solved by OP was not enough outputs, rather than not enough inputs.

[ben_w]

Given how much we use them to talk to each other, I'm surprised you're not counting the microphone; likewise video calls and the camera.

And given how phones and tablets are so much more common than laptops and desktops, touch screens.

Arguably there's also passive continuous inputs like GPS and heart rate sensors, accelerometers, etc. — mainstream, but I doubt it was the category you had in mind.