I recently made a fresh install of Ubuntu Mate 16.04 on my laptop that has a touchpad.
I assume it's a "feature" that my pointer keeps disappearing whenever I start typing. This occurs in any application, any place that takes text entry. However, I find it's not ideal for me. It seems to take a few moments for the pointer to come back to life after it's been hidden, which interrupts my sense of how the touchpad and pointer should be operating.
Where do I find the interface to control this behaviour and turn it off?
unclutter
. You don't happen to have that running? (Also, you seem to mean the mouse pointer, not the cursor. The cursor is the vertical bar in a text field or window that indicates where the next letter will appear.)