Computer input device with smart scroll

Abstract

An input system comprises a human machine interface device comprising a scroll device adapted to feed scroll pulses to a controller residing in the human machine interface device, for scrolling through contents on a display of a host computer. The controller is adapted and programmed to communicate with the host computer and adapted and programmed to sense, in a sequence of scroll pulses, elapsed time spans between each of a plurality of the scroll pulses resulting from a user operating a scroll device being a part of a human-machine interface device which is adapted to communicate with the host computer, and a direction of the operation of the scroll device by the user. The controller is further adapted and programmed to, upon sensing elapsed time spans following a first scroll pulse until a subsequent scroll pulse is sensed, carry out the following: identifying a 'single scroll' or a 'fast scroll', depending on the elapsed time between subsequent scroll pulses; upon identifying a ‘single scroll’, issuing a single scroll event by a controller residing in the human machine interface device to initiate a single scroll command in the host computer; the controller is also adapted and programmed to upon identifying a ‘fast scroll’, issuing a number of single scroll events by the controller of the human-machine interface device to initiate a respective number of scroll commands in the host computer with predetermined time spans between subsequent scroll events; wherein the number of single scroll events is based on a value stored in the human-machine interface device, and wherein the predetermined time spans between subsequent scroll events being defined by a function or table of time span values stored in the human-machine interface device, and, upon sensing a scroll pulse having a reversed direction of the operation of the scroll device or an operation of an input sensor of the human-machine interface device while issuing the number of single scroll events, immediately ceasing to issue any further single scroll events of the number of single scroll events by the controller of the human-machine interface device.