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I don't think I am nearly geeky enough for /. any more. Touch-screen/graphics tablets just don't arouse those sort of feelings for me.

I'm a normal, red-blooded male but when I look at that it just makes me ... uh... uh... huuuuu!!

Oh, crap.

I got a refurbished tablet when they were available - I ended up paying something like 40% of the regular price, and it's worked great for over a year now.

What about trackballs? I haven't seen those mentioned yet. True, it isn't "hands-free" but it is an alternative to a mouse. Can't use one myself, but the people that do use them swear by them.

Grrr... seeing this makes me happy and very pissed at the same time.

I used to work for a certain graphics table manufacturer which actively refuses to provide any sort of support for Linux. When I worked for them, myself and one other guy actively lobbied and worked on getting Linux supported. The short version is that we were shot down and the company managed to get rid of both of us.

The kicker is that Dreamworks (at least when I worked there) was a huge Wacom customer. Now they can still use the tablets (thank you open source driver) but can't get any official support. Neato.

However, I couldn never imagine entering text with it -- it's simply too cumbrous a process to write out text with a pen. Keyboards, even with their limitations, are still the way to go.

I think one-handed chording keyboards would be a more likely replacement.

It's not wireless, and it's not cheap, but check out the Wacom Cintiq. I saw one at a Mac store and I'd definitely make do...

From http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index.cfm:

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Wacom's Cintiq combines the advantages of an LCD monitor with the control, comfort, and productivity provided by a Wacom tablet. The LCD monitor is clear, bright and easy to look at. The Cintiq pen has 512 levels of pressure-sensitivity, is cordless, and batteryless and includes both a DuoSwitch and a pressure-sensitive eraser. The Cintiq pen is used directly on the screen offering everyone from designers and illustrators to doctors and professors a powerful and intuitive new way to work on their computers.

The Cintiq LCD monitor is a true-color active matrix screen providing 16.7 million colors, a resolution of 1024 x 768 and a full 15" diagonal viewing area (the equivalent of a 17" CRT monitor).

For comfort and convenience, Cintiq features a removable pen holder that can be attached to either side and adjusted to your preferred height and angle. The Cintiq stand allows you to easily adjust the angle of your Cintiq screen between 18 and 73 degrees - and you can even remove the stand to comfortably rest the Cintiq in your lap.
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It also works with UNIX.

From http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index.cfm:

---
Wacom's Cintiq combines the advantages of an LCD monitor with the control, comfort, and productivity provided by a Wacom tablet. The LCD monitor is clear, bright and easy to look at. The Cintiq pen has 512 levels of pressure-sensitivity, is cordless, and batteryless and includes both a DuoSwitch and a pressure-sensitive eraser. The Cintiq pen is used directly on the screen offering everyone from designers and illustrators to doctors and professors a powerful and intuitive new way to work on their computers.

The Cintiq LCD monitor is a true-color active matrix screen providing 16.7 million colors, a resolution of 1024 x 768 and a full 15" diagonal viewing area (the equivalent of a 17" CRT monitor).

For comfort and convenience, Cintiq features a removable pen holder that can be attached to either side and adjusted to your preferred height and angle. The Cintiq stand allows you to easily adjust the angle of your Cintiq screen between 18 and 73 degrees - and you can even remove the stand to comfortably rest the Cintiq in your lap.
---

It also works with UNIX.

From http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index.cfm:

---
Wacom's Cintiq combines the advantages of an LCD monitor with the control, comfort, and productivity provided by a Wacom tablet. The LCD monitor is clear, bright and easy to look at. The Cintiq pen has 512 levels of pressure-sensitivity, is cordless, and batteryless and includes both a DuoSwitch and a pressure-sensitive eraser. The Cintiq pen is used directly on the screen offering everyone from designers and illustrators to doctors and professors a powerful and intuitive new way to work on their computers.

The Cintiq LCD monitor is a true-color active matrix screen providing 16.7 million colors, a resolution of 1024 x 768 and a full 15" diagonal viewing area (the equivalent of a 17" CRT monitor).

For comfort and convenience, Cintiq features a removable pen holder that can be attached to either side and adjusted to your preferred height and angle. The Cintiq stand allows you to easily adjust the angle of your Cintiq screen between 18 and 73 degrees - and you can even remove the stand to comfortably rest the Cintiq in your lap.
---

It also works with UNIX.

Since everyone is talking whole system, I'll only mention the main peripheral concern: a graphics tablet. My recommendation is to check out Wacom- their line of professional graphics tablets are just about the best out there- while being both Mac and PC enabled.

I'll avoid the theoretical for a moment and just speak to this:

My web designer friends are damaged for life because of mice, and yet we persist... Where do we go from here ?

Just thought I'd mention that when I started showing symptoms of RSI I went out and bought a couple of trackballs and a couple of Wacom Stylus tablets.

For design work, the Wacom products spoil me rotten, and though it hurts me to say so I've had nothing but luck with the Microsoft thumb-controlled track pads.
Though if you have political problems with them try the Kensington (which are excellent) or Logitech versions. I might try the new Logitech units myself actually.

It really changed the way i work, any desktop I loose to the tablets is mitigated by not halving to mouse around. So anyway, no more pain for me.

I'll avoid the theoretical for a moment and just speak to this:

My web designer friends are damaged for life because of mice, and yet we persist... Where do we go from here ?

Just thought I'd mention that when I started showing symptoms of RSI I went out and bought a couple of trackballs and a couple of Wacom Stylus tablets.

For design work, the Wacom products spoil me rotten, and though it hurts me to say so I've had nothing but luck with the Microsoft thumb-controlled track pads.
Though if you have political problems with them try the Kensington (which are excellent) or Logitech versions. I might try the new Logitech units myself actually.

It really changed the way i work, any desktop I loose to the tablets is mitigated by not halving to mouse around. So anyway, no more pain for me.

I'm not sure what good sniffed mouse data can do anyone. X/Y and button events don't seem useful out of context. If you are paranoid about this (and still need a cordless mouse) get a Wacom Tablet.

There is indeed a Wacom tablet with an LCD screen in front of it. Because the tablet part isn't transparent it goes behind the LCD. This has the added benefits of a clearer picture because there isn't an extra layer.

Say you have a "Z" gesture (Haven't played B&W or used the new version of Opera yet, so don't know exactly what types of gestures we're talking here) - you could try to do it with a mouse, but it could be difficult. With a tablet, it's as simple as writing a Z as you normally would on paper. Quite simple.

The tablets aren't too expensive, either. I chose Wacom as they're recognized as the industry leader among artists (Higher pressure sensitivity and more gee-whiz bells and whistles), but most any tablet could work. I got mine (6x8 intuos) for $130, refurbished. No problems with it. It's a serial interface, but that doesn't bother me too much. You can get the smaller "average" version for about $70 or $80, I think, and it'd work just as well. I certainly consider it to be worth the price.

-- Chris

Well, for those of us on Windows (don't kill me), there's Sensiva. Designed for a mouse, but works great with a Wacom tablet, too.

The Wacom tablets could be close to what you need... check them out at www.wacom.com. The Graphire is a cheap USB option, which can be had at your local Sam's Club store or at many fine online establishments. As you move up the scale, they have tablets such as the Intuos that can handle the "Intuos Inking Pen" (so you can sign a receipt at the same time you capture, if you so choose) and at the top of the line, the PL series, which is a LCD screen with a tablet on top.

If you need to slide in a receipt like they do at Circuit City, a bit of plastic cut to shape and glued to the tablet shoudl work beautifully. The Graphire comes with a plastic shield anyway - just cut three/fourths of a box out of it and slide the receipt right in.

Hope this helps!

Ben

The Wacom tablets could be close to what you need... check them out at www.wacom.com. The Graphire is a cheap USB option, which can be had at your local Sam's Club store or at many fine online establishments. As you move up the scale, they have tablets such as the Intuos that can handle the "Intuos Inking Pen" (so you can sign a receipt at the same time you capture, if you so choose) and at the top of the line, the PL series, which is a LCD screen with a tablet on top.

If you need to slide in a receipt like they do at Circuit City, a bit of plastic cut to shape and glued to the tablet shoudl work beautifully. The Graphire comes with a plastic shield anyway - just cut three/fourths of a box out of it and slide the receipt right in.

Hope this helps!

Ben

The Wacom tablets could be close to what you need... check them out at www.wacom.com. The Graphire is a cheap USB option, which can be had at your local Sam's Club store or at many fine online establishments. As you move up the scale, they have tablets such as the Intuos that can handle the "Intuos Inking Pen" (so you can sign a receipt at the same time you capture, if you so choose) and at the top of the line, the PL series, which is a LCD screen with a tablet on top.

If you need to slide in a receipt like they do at Circuit City, a bit of plastic cut to shape and glued to the tablet shoudl work beautifully. The Graphire comes with a plastic shield anyway - just cut three/fourths of a box out of it and slide the receipt right in.

Hope this helps!

Ben

The Wacom tablets could be close to what you need... check them out at www.wacom.com. The Graphire is a cheap USB option, which can be had at your local Sam's Club store or at many fine online establishments. As you move up the scale, they have tablets such as the Intuos that can handle the "Intuos Inking Pen" (so you can sign a receipt at the same time you capture, if you so choose) and at the top of the line, the PL series, which is a LCD screen with a tablet on top.

If you need to slide in a receipt like they do at Circuit City, a bit of plastic cut to shape and glued to the tablet shoudl work beautifully. The Graphire comes with a plastic shield anyway - just cut three/fourths of a box out of it and slide the receipt right in.

Hope this helps!

Ben

I bought a Logitech Marble Mouse originally as a trackball for MAME, but it worked so well, it's my main mouse.

The only downside I've had is that it isn't precise enough for careful detail work or smooth drawing in Photoshop or sniping in Quake. The way the three ball bearings are laid out, it tends to start to rotate on a diagonal when it starts moving. The semi-randomness of the dots on the ball also make it move a little unpredictably.

Now I use a USB Wacom Graphire for precision stuff. I haven't tried it in games yet, but it'll probably play well.

On the advice of an old ask slashdot I bought the $500CAD Kinesis contoured keyboard. The price is very steep, however it has been well worth it. If the keyboard starts to act funny after spilling coke in it, just send it back and they will fix it up for about $50usd.

I no longer have pains in my wrists.

The keyboard switches between dvorak and qwerty with ease. It took a little while to learn dvorak, but again, it is well worth it. If you are ever stuck at a qwerty keyboard it will slow you down a bit, however you can always just look at the letters on the keyboard to figure out where you should be putting your fingers. If you are using a windows machine it is very easy to map a qwerty keyboard to a dvorak layout - just go into control panel/keyboard and change the language to us dvorak.

I also use a Wacom graphire tablet instead of a mouse. This also has greatly reduced repetive stress.

Recently ended up digging out Red Alert again and having a play. Curiosity got the better of me, however, and I ended up trying to play it with my 'new toy', a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet.

The thing is amazing for RTS, the 'pen' working to select/move units and build things in a remarkably simple way, and with the 'eraser' end set to emulate a 'shift+mouse' trick it made multiple selects so easy. The other hand rested on the Wacom Mouse, a five button+wheel little doobrie I'd set up as a button box

Finally, I can live the intro to Mech Commander in the comfort of my own swivelly chair!

Sure, this things expensive enough to effectively price itself right out of this bracket- but it's a lot nicer than this Commander sounds.

Check out Wacom's PL Series. You hook them up like a monitor and you can draw on them. Very cool, and very useful. Not positive about Linux support, but I'm sure someone is working on it.

Why dream? The technology has been available for years.

Wacom LCD Tablets

I remember seeing a drawing table/screen the size of a drafting table at SIGGRAPH a few years ago. It was in the Alias/Wavefront booth and they were running Alias Sketch on it. Quite cool.

Another variant of this is from Wacom. They have a line of their graphics tablets that have a LCD screens behind them so an artist can draw right on the display. I don't think they do handwriting recognition, though.

Don't think "wordprocessing" when you see this. Think Photoshop / Graphic design -- a portable tablet-sized device an artist can take on the road and draw on directly, instead of having to hook up a separate tablet. We already have tablets with a built in lcd screen that the artist draws on directly. Apple is just taking the logical step of wrapping a computer around it and updating the operating system not to require any additional input devices.

Is there anyone here who can write (for a recognition system) as fast as they can type? I doubt it - I can't even write in my normal sloppy script as quickly as I type. This idea seems cool at first but really sucks.
One good product Wacom makes can be seen here: Graphire 2. This pen and mouse combo seems pretty decent - a wireless mouse and a pen input tablet all in one. Don't worry about that mouse; it communicates with the pad somehow.

Well, you can start at the Wacom Tablet HOWTO.

There is a driver here, which Wacom themselves link to.

As far as I know, their serial versions are supported, but not USB. I haven't actually tried it ('cause I have a USB Graphire), but pressure sensing is supposed to be usable in the Gimp.

dufke
-

Mmmm .. tasty.

I'd also throw in Adobe InDesign. I already have Photoshop and Illustrator. on my NT machine, but I'd need Mac versions of those, too, if someone were kind enough to give me a G4. Oh, and one of those Wacom tablets, preferably the 12 by 18 one. Um, and maybe DSL service.

I am not greedy! You take that back.

Mmmm .. tasty.

I'd also throw in Adobe InDesign. I already have Photoshop and Illustrator. on my NT machine, but I'd need Mac versions of those, too, if someone were kind enough to give me a G4. Oh, and one of those Wacom tablets, preferably the 12 by 18 one. Um, and maybe DSL service.

I am not greedy! You take that back.

I have been using a Wacom ArtPad (supported quite nicely in XFree86) for over a year now. The best thing about a pen tablet is that it is not a mouse -- you can jump to any point on the screen in the time it takes to shift your hand. Though it took a while to get used to the buttons on the pen (and they still kinda annoy me), it has made working at the computer much more comfortable (not to mention, it has increased my Starcraft dexterity exponentially -- i can repair 12 bunched wraithes with no missed clicks. Though it kinda blows for quake...)

To me, this new pen combines all the disadvantages of a mouse and a pen into one. The worst thing about mice is the mouse ball by far -- it always gets dirty, it requires you to use the same amount of force constantly. Like all pens, it has those annoying buttons.

If you use a Wacom tablet, the serial port connects to the tablet -- not the pen. All that fancy radio hardwire, besides sounding like a frustration in the wings (interference = no mouse!), really doesn't offer you anything that different from what already exists.

Drivers exist because Wacom has done the sensible thing by sponsoring the XFree86 Project. Plus, WACOM is a respected manufacturer that is more or less the standard for graphic designers worldwide.

I doubt the cable from the tablet to the serial port will really bother you that much. Of course, if it does, check out the graphire. And if you want something to really make you drool, check out this.

I have been using a Wacom ArtPad (supported quite nicely in XFree86) for over a year now. The best thing about a pen tablet is that it is not a mouse -- you can jump to any point on the screen in the time it takes to shift your hand. Though it took a while to get used to the buttons on the pen (and they still kinda annoy me), it has made working at the computer much more comfortable (not to mention, it has increased my Starcraft dexterity exponentially -- i can repair 12 bunched wraithes with no missed clicks. Though it kinda blows for quake...)

To me, this new pen combines all the disadvantages of a mouse and a pen into one. The worst thing about mice is the mouse ball by far -- it always gets dirty, it requires you to use the same amount of force constantly. Like all pens, it has those annoying buttons.

If you use a Wacom tablet, the serial port connects to the tablet -- not the pen. All that fancy radio hardwire, besides sounding like a frustration in the wings (interference = no mouse!), really doesn't offer you anything that different from what already exists.

Drivers exist because Wacom has done the sensible thing by sponsoring the XFree86 Project. Plus, WACOM is a respected manufacturer that is more or less the standard for graphic designers worldwide.

I doubt the cable from the tablet to the serial port will really bother you that much. Of course, if it does, check out the graphire. And if you want something to really make you drool, check out this.

I have been using a Wacom ArtPad (supported quite nicely in XFree86) for over a year now. The best thing about a pen tablet is that it is not a mouse -- you can jump to any point on the screen in the time it takes to shift your hand. Though it took a while to get used to the buttons on the pen (and they still kinda annoy me), it has made working at the computer much more comfortable (not to mention, it has increased my Starcraft dexterity exponentially -- i can repair 12 bunched wraithes with no missed clicks. Though it kinda blows for quake...)

To me, this new pen combines all the disadvantages of a mouse and a pen into one. The worst thing about mice is the mouse ball by far -- it always gets dirty, it requires you to use the same amount of force constantly. Like all pens, it has those annoying buttons.

If you use a Wacom tablet, the serial port connects to the tablet -- not the pen. All that fancy radio hardwire, besides sounding like a frustration in the wings (interference = no mouse!), really doesn't offer you anything that different from what already exists.

Drivers exist because Wacom has done the sensible thing by sponsoring the XFree86 Project. Plus, WACOM is a respected manufacturer that is more or less the standard for graphic designers worldwide.

I doubt the cable from the tablet to the serial port will really bother you that much. Of course, if it does, check out the graphire. And if you want something to really make you drool, check out this.

I think that better GUI's are out there, it's just expensive to try anything other than the mouse and tube that comes with your pc. And it's probably even less likely for a company to provide you with hardware this cool... Unless you are very, very good at what you do.

It came out about a few months ago for $100 US ($75-$90 street price). It's a consumer-level product, not for hardcore GIMP, Photoshop or Painter users like the Intuos, which means it costs less and has less (a mere 1015 DPI) tablet resolution. The Wacom XInput page says it's supported, but I don't have one (yet) to test it. Check it out.

This is very similar to the Wacom tablets. They even have the cordless stuff available.

Pen/tablet systems are great for artists, but a mouse is still better for general use. If you don't believe me, feel free to plunk down a hundred or so for a Wacom (already available with Linux drivers) and see for your self.