[ltp] Hacking the UltraNav USB keyboard

[Richard Neill]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your email.

>> Newer thinkpads (with a pad as well as a stick), and the USB Ultranav
>> use a synaptics device, which is quite sophisticated. I'd expect that to
>> have support for various modes of the daisy-chained trackpoint.
>>
> 
> Prior to the Synaptics touchpad being introduced the Trackpoint was
> just a PS/2 device that accepted some special commands. When the
> UltraNav came out they just hooked the TrackPoint up to the pass-thru
> port on the Synaptics controller but did not change any of the
> device's characteristics.
> 
> You should see the TrackPoint's configuration settings in
> /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serioX or  ../serioX/serioY depending on
> your configuration.

Yes, that's exactly what I see when using the trackpoint on my T60p 
thinkpad.

> 
> The TrackPoint keyboard probably has the same devices attached to it
> but instead of going over the i8042 controller it gets routed through
> the USB system somewhere.

That sounds likely, though I can't see any evidence of the special 
commands. For example, nothing results from:

   find /sys -name sensitivity

> 
> Maybe one day when I find one of these keyboards I'll poke around and
> see if I can create the driver for it.

That would be wonderful. Is there anything I can do to help? I can run 
some more tests on it, or give you SSH access to the machine concerned.

Regards,

Richard