USB Pointing Stick

I am fascinated by the IBM pointing stick. If your not familiar with it, it is a method of navigating your cursor without a mouse or trackpad. I had found an old IBM thinkpad 600 and while constantly finding myself frustrated with its out of date BIOS and utter rejection for the Ubuntu operating system all the while I was using something seemingly unfamiliar, a pointing stick. I’m not a laptop guy, I’ve never actually done anything for more than an hour on a laptop, but when I use one I am often frustrated without a mouse.

The pointing stick opened the whole world up, it was the alternative to the crappy trackpad. Laptops, by nature are mobile and not having a mouse is practical but you take such a productivity hit for having to use a trackpad. I suggest creating a usb pointing stick dongle, this could go on the side of a laptop and be used as an alternative to a trackpad. My real dream is to see this on the side of my Apple Aluminum keyboard, as there is a usb port right under the escape key, you could use your right hand and easily move the cursor without really leaving the keyboard. I mean we can create USB humping dogs why can’t we make this happen?