It’s “COMALite J” not “COMALite 3”.

To get an idea of how responsive a force sensor-based controller can be, go to your local Office Depot, Office MAX, Circuit City, Sam’s Warehouse, or any other store likely to carry an IBM ThinkPad notebook and have it on display, or you can buy the IBM SmartScroll mouse (which is like a MS IntelliMouse or other wheel mouse, except that instead of a wheel it has one of those pencil-eraser-tip force-sensor things for scrolling in any direction, not just up and down). It does take a bit of practice, but no more, really, than learning to use a mouse for the first time did. It’s much more natural than touchpads or joysticks or trackballs, and your finger barely moves!

Now imagine this with a full six degrees of freedom, not just two! Three linear and three rotational axes!

I suppose a foot controller could be made with this technology, but in general people’s feet aren’t as dexterous as their hands (though that totally armless virtuoso violinist who played with his feet proves that the potential is there). Your foot would have to rest on a pedal with a shoe-like top attached to it, sort of like slipping your foot into a shoe with a very heavy sole. This would enable you to pull up as well as push down for the Z axis.

However, I think you could get quite a few continuous controls available from your feet and legs: anyone remember knee lever switches, such as many home organs used to use (Kimball and Yamaha both had them, as I recall)? Not to mention toe switches that were mounted on the sides of expression foot pedals, for momentary contact (usually a preset half-step down bending up into proper pitch glide) or toggle functions.

With two feet and two knees, you could have six continuous controllers (two for each knee, one to the left of the knee and one to the right, plus of course the two foot pedals themselves), plus four binary toe sitches, all without having to move a foot from off a pedal.

If these controls were made assignable to any CC or other function (pitch bend, channel aftertouch to give aftertouch to non-AT-equipped keyboards, etc.), that would be an accessory worth adding to any arranger keyboard or workstation or synth!

Touch screen interfaces have one very major disadvantage that seems to be forgotten: they are by far the single most blind-unfriendly interface available! There is nothing for a blind user to even feel! And how many famous blind musicians (often keyboardardists) are there? Has the industry so soon forgotten Stevie Wonder? How could he or someone like him ever learn to operate a Trinity, Triton, or VA-7, by himself?