Claims
- 1. A hand held control device comprising:
- a rigid body adapted for being gripped and carried by a single hand of a user while leaving the thumb and finger tips of said gripping and carrying hand free to operate control elements mounted in said rigid body;
- a plurality of control elements mounted in the rigid body for activation by a thumb or finger tip of said gripping and carrying hand to generate control data;
- transmission means located in the rigid body for communicating said control data between the hand held control device and a remotely located computing system having a display;
- at least one of said control elements being a pointing stick for controlling in a joystick-like manner actions at said display;
- at least one of said control elements corresponding to a left gripping and carrying hand-and being mounted on the rigid body for activation only by a finger tip of said gripping and carrying hand when said gripping and carrying hand is a left hand and at least one other one of said control elements corresponding to a right gripping and carrying hand and being mounted on the rigid body for activation only by a finger tip of said gripping and carrying hand when said gripping and carrying hand is a right hand: and
- a chirality detector mounted in the rigid body for automatically sensing whether said gripping and carrying hand is a left hand or a right hand and automatically enabling said control elements corresponding thereto.
- 2. The hand held control device of claim 1 wherein the control elements include a four position switch.
- 3. The hand held control device of claim 2 wherein the four position switch controls voice communications through the device to a remotely located computer system.
- 4. The hand held control device of claim 1 having a feedback means for signaling the user of the device of an occurrence of selected conditions.
Government Interests
This invention was made with Government support under contract number DTFA01-88-C-00042, awarded by the Department of Transportation. The Government has certain rights in this invention.
US Referenced Citations (4)