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Bricklin on Tablet PCs
t482 writes "Dan Bricklin gives his first impressions of the Tablet PC.
'The most important thing to know about the Tablet PC, as far as I'm concerned so far, is that Microsoft did a great job...of naming it.' and then goes on to give a fascinating history of pen computing."
I always wanted on of these things, but I know if I am luck enough to get it, I won't use it. Oh the pains of being responsible :)
Where exactly is the market demand for these?
But did he trademark 'Tablet' the way he trademarked 'bookshelf' ?
We all know the answer to that one...
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
first off-topic post!
The problem with tablet PCs right now is the battery life. The whole advantage of a tablet PC is it lets you use it on the go, but if you have to plug in every two hours to recharge the batteries, that defeats the purpose.
I think there are some applications for tablet PCs now, hospitals, etc., but in order for them to reach mainstream-acceptance, they need to tackle the power/battery issue.While the idea of a keyless computer doesn't appeal to me, it would be nice to have a cordless web browser I could use anywhere, say searching recipies on the fly in the kitchen, or browsing the TV listings/reviews in bed, or catching up on the news in the bathroom.
Tablet PC isn't a new idea is it? Didn't Moses have the first tablet PC? The only application it ran was TenCommandments(R)
i want one i and multiboot, windows ce, linux and palm os5.
sig: 76bc21fdab6a25b2f80e71298abc5b47
Dan Bricklin! I'm gonna run right out and buy one now, because Dan Bricklin reviewed it!!
That's why the media loves them. And that's why I think I would love it. I don't like my PDA because the screen is too small. I don't like to surf the net on my phone because the screen is too small. I want something that is about the size of a piece of paper. Microsoft did not invent it... but they will get the word out (the bastards).
Sex - Find It
My new tablet computer (I got it 2 weeks ago) is so perfect it made me forget it is running XP and I simply haven't had time to try and get Linux running on it.
It suits my way of working so well that I can't think how I managed before. I don't do my main development on it, I still prefer typing to writing for that. But it allows me to do my email and do lots of design (both development and UI usability) while commuting to work on the train each day [yeah, I know I'll be criticised for being conned into working during personal time, but I'm not stupid - my productivity is higher so I go home early!].
Back to the internals
Giant pad of paper reviewed. More at 11...
Put on some powerful magnets on the back of one of these, and you got yourself a cheap internet fridge (why you'd want one is beyond me).
:D
Heck this might be the coolest fridge magnet yet!
R4NT.com - A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
Bricklin? Whats that, a new linux distro(brick-linux ;)? New codename for a windows release? Ahh, no wait, it's some guy.. What the heck is he doing ON a tablet pc?? ok.. whatever..
Tablet PC: First Impressions
...the way Microsoft is doing this will hopefully encourage tablet-centric innovation to start again throughout the hardware and software industry, so we'll continue these advances, and the rate of improvement will return to what it was in the early 1990's. ...[the new machines are] still basically a version 1 or 2...
Back in the early 1990's, I was heavily involved in the pen computing world. I co-founded Slate Corporation which developed application software for GO's Penpoint as well as Microsoft's Windows for Pen Computing and for the Apple Newton. I was exposed to software and hardware development, both at the OS and application level, and had experience using a wide variety of machines. With the release of the new Tablet PCs based upon Microsoft's new software, I felt it was appropriate for me to comment upon that, given my perspective. You will find here my comments based on my general feelings as well as actual experiences using various equipment.
How I decided what to buy
At various points in time, starting with Bill Gate's Comdex 2000 talk, I have been seeing public prototypes of Microsoft's Tablet PC software and the accompanying hardware. Most recently, I got to play with an Acer unit for a few minutes while waiting to get into Jeff Raike's talk at TechXNY (PC Expo). My Thinkpad was well over 3 years old, and I knew it was time for a new laptop. I decided to wait until the Tablet PCs became available, and probably get one of them. I had used a Grid Convertible (a machine from late 1992) for years after it came out, and knew that a convertible could be a fine laptop, even if you didn't take advantage of the pen much, and I needed a lightweight laptop.
Now that the Tablet PCs are shipping, I decided it was time for me to buy. Since I was spending my own money and knew this would have to last me for a while, I looked carefully. Given my needs, I narrowed it down to the Acer, Compaq, and Toshiba. The Acer has a maximum of 256M of RAM, so I decided that wouldn't work for me in case I wanted to do any development work, or run some of the photo manipulation apps I'd probably end up using for my photography work. I was really torn between the Compaq and the Toshiba. From the specs, both looked like they'd meet my needs. The Compaq is supposed to have much better battery life, has a stalk as the keyboard resident pointing device, has more buttons, and is lighter when the keyboard is detached. Its pen, though, is not pressure sensitive. The Toshiba has a bigger and supposedly brighter screen (better for showing pictures and presentations, which I do a lot), faster processor, a touch pad (which I don't like as much as the stalk), and is in a more traditional form factor. Configured as I wanted them, with warranties, etc., they were close enough in price. I've had two Toshiba Portege's over the years, so I was more familiar with them, but I worked with Compaq on a similar, earlier machine, so I had some loyalty (and they ended up with Slate's assets when we closed it down).
In the end, I couldn't find a Compaq to look at, but I found a Toshiba 3505 that was available at a CompUSA store in my area. After looking at it, I decided I might as well get the Toshiba. (I've presented the whole story of how I made my decision here not as an endorsement, but as an example of the type of thinking you might want to go through. I expect to spend time with some of the other units over the next few months, and will comment about them when I can.)
My philosophical feelings about tablet computers
The most important thing to know about the Tablet PC, as far as I'm concerned so far, is that Microsoft did a great job...of naming it. Much as the press wants to call it a "pen" computer, it is a Tablet computer. You must understand that. The basis of the machine is that it is (or can be turned into) a tablet. The pen is secondary, and not always important. I think they did the right thing in concentrating on the tablet aspect.
Being a tablet means that it is much more mobile than laptops or desktops. You can do the things you do with a PC (read, web surf, email, etc.) in more situations (sitting without a desk, standing, etc.). The big change since earlier tablet computers like the Grid Convertible is that so many more people read so much more on a computer. PCs used to be mainly for composing, doing "what if?", etc. Now we use it for those applications, but even more we spend time reading (web, email, emailed documents) and quick communicating of simple stuff (IM). Another big change is that the main thing connected to a PC is not a printer, but rather all of computerdom, through LANs and the Internet. With 802.11, that connection can now be ubiquitous in more locations -- we are no longer tied to a particular wall connector. These factors increase the value of a tablet, and define its use more. When you read, you mainly select things on the screen (which email message to read, which links to follow, or which "favorites" to revisit), or scroll. When you compose, you are much more concerned with text.
The pen is an obvious choice for an input device on a tablet. Since a tablet is often used in a horizontal position, and you can't be sure of a firm place to rest something like a mouse, a pen is appropriate for a pointing device. In a vertical orientation, like on a laptop, the pen isn't as appropriate for a pointing device as a mouse. In those cases we either connect an external mouse, or put up with even more limited pointing devices like touch pads or stalks. (I find the pen a much better pointing device than either a touch pad or stalk.) In both vertical and horizontal orientations, for any large amount of input of plain text, a keyboard (or in some cases dictation) is a very good solution. A mouse is a lousy text input device, and a touch pad even worse. A pen, though, is better than a mouse for text input, using either a touch keyboard on-screen or handwriting recognition. Handwriting recognition, though, is not the point of a pen, just like it isn't for a mouse. The pen is also much better than the mouse (or keyboard, touch pad, or stalk) for inputting graphical information, and has been well received in the graphic arts world for years. We've put up with all sorts of kludgy UI workarounds to "draw" with a mouse, and consequently rarely use drawings in informal electronic communications as much as we would in a room with a whiteboard. The pen opens up new areas for applications using drawing, of which "digital ink" is one. Of course, every new input/output device added standard to a PC opens up vast new areas, from laser printers to CD-ROMs to sound cards to modems. The pen will be no different.
So, they are "pen" computers only in that being a tablet to some extent implies a pen. Like the touch pad and stalk in a traditional laptop, they are a reasonable compromise for doing the type of input you want to do with a PC. If you really wanted a "pen" computer, you'd probably want a desktop with a large dedicated writing surface like you find with the excellent pen tablets used by graphic artists. It's much easier to build a good pen system when it doesn't have to run through an electrically noisy color display, and it's much better to make a screen without protection layers for a pen.
Impressions after using it
I'm not going to do my normal job of showing pictures, etc., of the computer in operation, since you can find pretty good Flash and video presentations on the web sites of Microsoft and the manufacturers. I'll just comment on what I've encountered. I assume most readers here have read lots of reviews and other material about the machines and software.
As I write this, I've had the Tablet PC for about a day or so. After I spend more time, I'll publish updated impressions.
It's a geek magnet
Like most any new device, but maybe more so, other people are very interested in seeing it. On the way home from buying it, I stopped to go to a Massachusetts Software and Internet Council committee meeting. When I explained that I was a bit late because I had just bought a Tablet PC, I was immediately kicked out of the meeting until I would go back to the car, get it out of the trunk, and return to show it to everybody. The machine was still in the sealed carton, so I had to open it up and show how the screen turned around and how light/heavy it was. (I didn't take the time from the meeting to turn it on and configure it, though.) Later that night, my friend Bob Frankston strongly encouraged me to come over and show it to him and let him play a bit (he's probably going to get one of the Tablets -- he was also at Slate for part of the time). Anybody I tell about it says the same thing: "Can you bring it over for me to see? Please?" Just a warning.
You have to spend time learning how to set it up best for you
It took some fooling around (and there's still more to be done) to learn how to set up my Tablet PC to work the way that fits me best. For example, the Toshiba had "hibernate" as the default for closing the case, and "power off" for the power switch when it's in battery powered mode. I had to change them both to "standby", so that I can wake up the Tablet in a few (about 5) seconds. I didn't want it to go into portrait mode when I switch to tablet, only on command, so I changed that setting.
Inking problems with my chicken scratch
The most interesting thing for me was discovering something about inking. Just like I think I remember with the Acer prototypes last June, the inking is a little slow for my writing. It lags behind my pen a bit. (I haven't had a chance to compare the effects on different implementations of the pens.) In addition, the ink seems "smoothed" to remove the jaggies from the digitizer or something. It just doesn't seem to sample fast enough for my writing. I write with a quick, jerky, "chicken scratch" style. I print, and almost never use cursive (ever since a teacher in 8th grade told me my handwriting was so bad that I should either print or type from now on for her). In addition, the amount of pressure at which the pen is set to be "touching" feels relatively arbitrary (though consistent). With my way of writing, the combination of smoothing and strict determination of "touching" makes my quick notes look completely different than with a pen, and very difficult for me (or the recognizer) to understand. With cursive writing, done a bit slowly and large for me, things are much better -- but I'm not at all used to cursive writing.
For input, I find that handwriting recognition works OK, so I sometimes use it for input in Tablet mode, and sometimes use the on-screen keyboard (the keyboard is better for passwords...). The combination of cursive recognition and printing recognition is a nice step up from the machines I used in the old days. When I write in a way that my ink is readable (slowly and big), the recognition is surprisingly good, but not wonderful. Still, it sure beats writing with a mouse... For large amounts of text, I'll use the keyboard -- that's why I wanted a convertible. I was buying a new laptop, not replacing a keyboard.
I found a partial solution to the weird ink, though, for note taking: I set the Journal application to use the pressure sensitive feature of the pen. Suddenly, the ink of my handwriting (even printing) looked much better. In fact, while I was trying out the new settings, my cell phone rang, and I had to quickly jot down a number to call, and then take notes during the resulting call. It worked great. I just had to write somewhat bigger than I normally did, but with pressure sensitivity making it do different thicknesses as I pressed down it was readable for me, and using a pen was a lot easier than holding a cell phone to my ear with one hand and typing with the other -- and I got to doodle to boot! The Tablet PC may not be better than paper for taking notes (ignoring the storage and searching features I haven't tried yet), but it's sure makes the PC a more useful device. Some note taking is much better than none. Also, I'm happy I have the Toshiba with its pressure sensitive pen, but I'm waiting to find out how to tune other pen parameters. (I tried downloading Wacom's new driver for Tablet PCs that lets you set sensitivity, etc., but I had problems getting it to calibrate correctly for some reason.)
Buttons help reading and probably other things
An important part of a tablet is being able to read, and an important part of reading on a computer screen is scrolling. The Tablet PCs have buttons you can push. The Compaq has a rocker switch, too. The Toshiba has basically 3 buttons, by default set to Up-Arrow, Down-Arrow, and Enter. This means when you're reading, you barely even need the pen. Very nice. I think buttons are real important, just like on PDAs. Remember, it's a Tablet PC, not a Pen PC...
An interesting thing about reading: I've noticed how pervasive the RIM Blackberry has become with financial people like venture capitalists and analysts. They sit there in meetings, and every once in a while hold their RIM's in their laps and check their email. A Tablet PC with 802.11 or connection to cellular wireless with Bluetooth or its own cell phone PCMCIA card gives you an even better way to read real email and share what you've found with others in a meeting. Having a personal communications or data storage device you can read with on your lap with the right form factor is already successful (the RIM, PDAs). Here is a device with wider applicability and real Internet connectivity and lots of storage, with ink as a socially acceptable reply method/medium. The ability to turn the Tablet PC on or off in about 5 seconds with the push of a button is very helpful. (I think it takes a few more seconds to reconnect to 802.11, though.)
Portrait mode is a win
One of the properties of a tablet is being able to run in portrait as well as landscape mode. For reading on screen this can be very helpful. Much of what you read fits better on a machine the size of a pad of paper when it's in portrait mode, especially when you only have 1024x768 resolution (or is it 768x1024?). I received some email that I read over breakfast that included images of several fax pages. Reading it on my Toshiba in portrait mode was really great. I never needed to scroll, I just tapped the Next Page button every once in a while. Of course, for many regular computer applications and web pages, landscape mode works better. Being able to switch is important. On my big desktop machine, with an 18" 1280x1024 LCD display, I don't mind wasting the screen space when I read a portrait format page. With something I carry around, though, I don't want to have something any bigger than it has to be.
General purpose machine
If reading on screen is so important, why not just build an electronic book for reading? The answer is simple. You need to have a portable general purpose machine like a laptop anyway for composing, calculating, and running specialized applications. By the time you build a good enough "book" machine that can also connect to the Internet with whatever technique you have available (dial up, 100baseT, 802.11) and connect to the devices you'd like (USB), and be upgradable, etc., you're already spending enough for most of a laptop. It's silly to pay twice, so the more general laptop has always won out. It's only in the case of a completely different form factor, and a price down in the range of a software package or PC peripheral (which is what a Palm cost and was positioned as) that you'd buy both. By making the Tablet PC a full-fledged Windows machine, with access to all the normal peripherals and applications, you don't have that tension of needing to pay twice as much.
How far have we come?
Using the Toshiba (and remembering the little time on the Acer, and seeing the demos at conferences and on the web), Bob and I were both struck with how little advance there had been since the last try for pen computers in some respects. The pen/tablet software and hardware aspects appear just a bit better, especially given the huge increase in speed and capacity of today's computers vs. the ones of the early to mid-1990's (using the Grid Convertible as an example). Of course, making it work with color displays, and integrating things into full Windows XP, did take work, I assume. The advance in features, though, seems more like a "next release" or two of things rather than 10 years passing.
This is not bad, though. Things were pretty good in the old days. The Grid got hammered for its black and white screen just as color became standard (B&W being necessary for some of the digitizers of the day), and there wasn't as much advantage to a tablet back then. As I pointed out above, the big change is the environment in which the PC works. There are finally lots of real reasons for tablet computers. Also, the hardware has improved enough where the cost in weight and price is little different than the amount we've repeatedly spent for other new additions to laptops during that timeframe: CD drives, bigger screens, wireless, etc. Moore's law eventually brought those costs down to where they became standard. Tablet-ability is the latest in that long line of new capabilities.
What's exciting to me, though, is that the way Microsoft is doing this will hopefully encourage tablet-centric innovation to start again throughout the hardware and software industry, so we'll continue these advances, and the rate of improvement will return to what it was in the early 1990's. The wide variations in Tablet PC form factors shows the start of that innovation. There will be trial and error to learn all sorts of important issues, from number and placement of buttons, to inking techniques, to new ways to take advantage of the pen and sound.
Bottom line so far
So, one day in, my verdict: I can't see ever buying a portable laptop that isn't a convertible -- the benefits are too great for me. It's a Tablet PC, not a Pen PC, and not a Clamshell PC, and that's a win. While these are clearly still basically a version 1 or 2, they are still very useful. If you read a lot on a PC, and move your laptop around a lot, and have benefited from 802.11, and don't mind using early software that works but is basic (like the original VisiCalc was), and are in the market for a new laptop, take the next step and move up to a tablet. Corporate evaluators must start learning about these systems, because as they improve and the price difference disappears, you'll have to figure out how to configure them, what type of software to insist upon, etc. If you always wanted to do your composing with a pen, and expect handwriting to be as reliable as a keyboard, stick with the keyboard, and wait for "handwriting computing" to happen, if it ever does. It's not that important. Tablet computing is. It will make reading on a computer even more pervasive. I think Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers who were willing to take a chance trying to advance the state of mainstream personal computing are to be commended for what they've done.
- Dan Bricklin, 14 November 2002
In response to reactions to this essay, I've written another one looking at the reasoning behind some of my assertions. I explore a bit of the history of tablet hardware, as well as the state of application software for them in the early 1990's. I even link to a few patents to get detailed descriptions. See: "About Tablet Computing Old and New".
- Dan Bricklin, 22 November 2002
* * * OTHER ARTICLE * * *
About Tablet Computing Old and New
A discussion of PC tablet hardware and software from the 1990's, and why Microsoft's pushing of the new Tablet PCs will bring renewed innovation.
The Recording Industry is Trying to Kill the Goose That Lays the Golden Egg >
In my "Tablet PC: First Impressions" essay I made some assertions about the amount of progress in tablet computing represented by the new Tablet PCs. Some sample quotes:
Bob and I were both struck with how little advance there had been since the last try for pen computers in some respects.
The advance in features, though, seems more like a "next release" or two of things rather than 10 years passing.
Things were pretty good in the old days.
I think Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers who were willing to take a chance trying to advance the state of mainstream personal computing are to be commended for what they've done.
It's hard for people who worked very hard bringing these new systems to market to hear me say it only looks like a "next release", and at the same time it's hard for others to understand why I believe things will advance so much further because of Microsoft and the manufacturers' recent actions. The purpose of this essay is to provide some of the reason for those statements.
The old hardware and OS software
To understand why it doesn't seem like such an advance, you have to be familiar with the hardware and software of the early 1990's.
The use of pens and tablets, and "light-pens" that you could point at the screen, goes very far back in the history of computers. For example, the SAGE air defense system from the 1950's used a "light gun" to interact with the screen. CAD/CAM systems of the 1960's (like the pioneering SketchPad) and 1970's used light pens or pens on opaque tablets to manipulate items on the screen.
A pen-based desktop system that was part of the personal computer world came from Wang in 1988. Called Wang Freestyle, it let you annotate screen captures, faxes, and scanned images, with "ink" from an electronic pen using an opaque tablet connected to a PC running normal applications, and manipulate thumbnails of those images by dragging them around using the pen. It let you synchronize recorded sound (using an attached telephone) to a recording of the pen motions. It let you then print, email, or fax the results. Freestyle was a big sensation at Comdex when shown. Even today, looking at a video of it in action demonstrated by the project lead Stephen Levine, it is impressive.
The first in the line of the "modern" tablet computers was the GRiDPad in 1989. Developed under R&D head Jeff Hawkins (who later founded Palm and Handspring), it was about 9"x12"x1.4" with a 10MHz 8086 running MSDOS. It had a pen that was at the end of a wire, and worked by making contact with a coating on the screen. It could recognize hand printed characters, and was used for data collection, like filling in forms.
The next really influential tablet system was from GO Corporation. The prototype "Lombard" was 80286 based, and ran a new, GUI operating system called PenPoint. GO was started in 1987. After announcing their product in January 1991, GO upgraded the base system to require an 80386 for the first real customer release (which was in April 1992). Later, as the company named EO, the processor for PenPoint was changed again, this time to the AT&T Hobbit chip. Each time, software developers had to upgrade their software.
After GO started on PenPoint, Microsoft reacted with enhancements to Windows 3.1 to create Windows for Pen Computing, better known as PenWindows. (The head of that project was Jeff Raikes, who now heads Microsoft's Productivity and Business Services Group which includes the Tablet PC.) Some machines produced at the time (such as the 3 lb. NCR 3125 pure tablet) could boot to either PenPoint or PenWindows. A variety of manufacturers made machines for PenWindows, including Samsung and later Compaq. The most interesting PenWindows computer, for me, was the GRiD Convertible, released in mid-1992. (I still have a working one which I used for years -- most of the other pen-enabled computers in my collection are stowed away in a warehouse.) The GRiD Convertible was a normal Windows laptop, but when you closed the screen, it folded down in such a way that the screen faced out -- like a tablet. It was started under Jeff Hawkins before he left to found Palm Computing. (Notice how these two Jeffs' names keep coming up.) NEC also made a variation on it's laptop with a screen you could turn around, like some of today's tablets. Many other manufacturers tried their hands at tablet computers, including Wang and IBM. These computers all used either a Wacom digitizer and battery-less but electronically active pen (the same used in many of today's Tablet PCs, and very popular as a desktop accessory for graphic artists) or a battery powered (or tethered on a wire) active pen from some other manufacturer. The reason for a special pen is to let the computer track the pen's location when it is held near, but not touching, the screen, much like a mouse is moved before clicking. Windows depends upon the ability to show different cursors, have "hovering" effects, etc. Unfortunately, some of the digitizing technology of the day did not work well with color screens which were just coming into a reasonable price range, so digitizers were left off of most later machines.
Another computer of the day was the Momenta, but it had pretty much its own variant of Windows, and a pen like the original GRiDPad -- no hover.
One of the last of that crop of pen-enabled computers was the Apple Newton, first shipped in 1993. While Apple had experimented with other tablet computers, this was the one released to the most fanfare. The Newton's pen, as I recall, did not have hover -- it was more like the later Palm computers which just sensed pressure on the screen from any object.
In all cases, the use of a pen as an input device was integrated into the operating system to varying degrees. The pen could be used for most mouse actions, such as clicking or dragging. Within almost any application, instead of typing on a keyboard, you could write on the screen or tap on a virtual keyboard. There were various "gestures" (special pen movements) that invoked certain functions, for example, Undo, or, like today's Tablet PCs, bring up a writing pad or virtual keyboard. All systems had handwriting recognition of some sort.
Looking at the machines of those days, and given the advances in hardware since, today's Tablet PCs are not very surprising. They are somewhat lighter and with much faster microprocessors and greater memory, but the pen additions and form-factors are similar. The important thing, as I point out in my First Impressions essay, is that today's machines come into an environment where you read more on a computer screen, and wireless connectivity to all of computerdom is commonplace. Now these machines have a much more important reason to exist.
The old applications
The first applications for the GRiDPad were very basic, in line with the simple forms capabilities of a basic browser. With the advent of PenPoint, though, developers started producing much more sophisticated products, pouring millions and millions of dollars into development. PenPoint itself had a very sophisticated, pen-centric UI. Coming before the convertibles, and trying to completely eliminate the keyboard, there were all sorts of user interface advances. Some of those ended up influencing Windows 95. It had OLE-like embedding well before it was viable on Windows, it required just a "tap" to launch apps which avoided the need for double-clicking, and more.
In early 1990, I co-founded a company called Slate Corporation (along with other PC veterans like Vern Raburn, Dottie Hall, and Tom Byers). Our mission was to create application software for the upcoming PenPoint and other tablet/pen operating systems. There were other companies that were creating application software specifically for these machines, but ours was the best funded, produced the most products, and is the one I know best, so I'll talk about it first.
We demonstrated the first of our software when GO announced PenPoint (286 version) in January 1991, and shipped our products in shrink-wrapped boxes in 1992 for both PenPoint and PenWindows. The products we developed were:
PenApps, an application development system somewhat similar to Visual Basic (which was being developed around the same time). It had an object oriented programming language (PenBasic) with support for ink as a data type, a drag and drop interface builder, and more. You could write on a form created with it, and when filling out forms it was smart about targeting the ink you wrote to the correct field (so you didn't have to carefully "writing inside of the lines"). It had "deferred translation" where the ink was kept around so you didn't have to wait for each field to translate as you filled out a form, and you could check translated data against the original ink at any time. It had a built-in database. It was a major product.
PenBook, an electronic book creation system. This was similar to Adobe's PDF system (being developed around the same time), but tuned for reading on a tablet computer. It could convert Postscript files output from most any program into its format, and then you could read the "books" with a special reader. The reader supported pen gestures for turning pages, annotating and highlighting, bookmarks that looked like paperclips, and more. It had searching and stored the "book" in a compressed format.
At-Hand spreadsheet for PenPoint only. This was a full-fledged spreadsheet (mainly created by Bill Lynch who went on to work with Microsoft's Excel group for years) complete with a BASIC-like programming language with special spreadsheet data-types and operators to react to tapped buttons and other events (developed by Bob Frankston before VBA came out from Microsoft in 1994) and a full graphing package (developed by Buzz Kelley, now with me at Trellix). It could read and write Excel and 1-2-3 files (thanks to Peter Levin, now with me at Trellix). In addition to all this, it was completely operable with a pen, with lots of innovative features. You could write on the spreadsheet cell grid, and it would target your writing to the appropriate cell. If what you wrote was text, you got a label cell; if it was a number, you got a numeric value, appropriately formatted. If it couldn't recognize what you wrote well, you got ink reduced to fit in the cell (ready for correction or to be left alone). For entering formulas, there was a special input dialog tuned to the pen. A couple taps of the pen selected a range of cells, and writing a "+" put the "sum" function where you wrote it. There was a markup layer to annotate things with ink. The graphing system handled most of the popular graph types (including 3D and contour) yet scaled appropriately to work well when embedded on the sheet or elsewhere. A year or so later we created an Excel plug-in called PenPower that added many of those pen-centric capabilities to Excel running under PenWindows.
Day-Timer Pen Scheduler for PenPoint or PenWindows. This was an electronic ink-based version of Day-Timer, Inc.'s organizer, with calendar-based day/week/month/year views, notetaking pages, to-do lists, and a name/address book (which used text and ink). With easy zooming, you could use "tiny text" to fit lots of data in any space ("Your pages are uncluttered, yet full of valuable information"). You could circle something of interest, and then file that snippet away in an index by topic, linked back to the original, all with a quick gesture.
LooseLeaf Notetaker for PenWindows. This was an ink-based notetaking application for the GRiD Convertible with a variety of pens and markers.
In addition to Slate's products, there were deep, innovative products from other companies. For example, Pensoft produced a personal information manager that used recognized text and a data base. A later company (founded in 1991) was Aha!, which created an ink-based notetaking product with extensive ink editing features. Among other things, it could "word wrap" text still in ink, and do background translation for later conversion or searching. Aha! was bought by Microsoft in 1996, and you can see how the Windows Journal program comes from it (without some of the cool word-wrapping features).
One of the issues we were working on at Slate in the mid-1990's was evangelizing the use of digital ink created with a digitizing pen as a normal data type among applications. We also had to deal with making the ink look true enough to your quick scribbles, so that even when you used a 6"x8" screen to mark up an 8 1/2"x11" fax shrunk to fit, it would look "normal" printed out or re-faxed at full size. We did lots of work with growing and shrinking ink, and related issues. (When you shrink, you don't want the lines to get below a certain thickness or else it sometimes looks weird.) We also worked on some early pocket sized prototypes, as well as software for Apple's Newton when it first shipped.
Learn from old patents
To learn more about the level of thinking that went into these old products, you can read some of the patents that came out of those efforts. Since patents are supposed to teach you what is novel and important, reading them should be like reading a techie-to-techie whitepaper about what's special and why. (Unlike when looking for infringement, just read the main body of these patents, not the claims. I list them here not to say whether or not they apply today, but rather as a source of learning about what was thought about in the past.)
5,613,019: System and methods for spacing, storing and recognizing electronic representations of handwriting, printing and drawings. [Based on filings to the Patent Office done in May 1993.] This has the text of Aha!'s description. I found the middle section (it's a long patent) where it discusses how to determine what's a "word" (getting the dots over the "i"s to be part of the right word, even if written much later) interesting. The patent mentions that the digitizers of those days sampled the pen's position about 200 times a second -- faster than most Tablet PCs today.
5,455,901: Input device with deferred translation. [Based on filings from November 1991.] This describes keeping the ink around to translate later, as well as for verification or instead of translation. It's the Slate PenApps patent. This and the other Slate patents are now owned by Compaq/HP. (Compaq bought Slate Corporation when we ran out of money when people refrained from buying the computers that ran our software.)
5,717,939 and 5,848,187: Method and apparatus for entering and manipulating spreadsheet cell data. [These are based on filings from November 1991.] These are the Slate At-Hand spreadsheet patents (the two have similar text, but different claims). They describe targeting ink to cells, special spreadsheet gestures, improved recognition for a spreadsheet, and more.
5,867,150: Graphic indexing system. [Based on filings from February 1992.] One of the Slate Pen Scheduler patents. This relates to selecting something on the screen by circling it and then quickly adding it to a graphical index or gallery. Sometimes it's easier to just put the image of a piece of a page into an index for quick scanning with your eyes than to type a description. This patent relates to such a feature.
5,231,578: Apparatus for document annotation and manipulation using images from a window source, 5,625,833: Document annotation & manipulation in a data processing system. [Based on filings in 1988.] Some of the Wang Freestyle patents.
So as you can see, the thinking 10 years ago was quite deep, with applications on par with anything being shown today.
Why the machines are version 1 or 2
Looking at some of the machines, you can see that we still haven't learned all the tricks necessary to make a tablet without rough edges. For example, on the Toshiba, which is supposed to have one of the better pen holders, when you put the pen back in its holder, the pen tip is close to the side of the screen and entices the mouse cursor to move over to it, away from where you left it. (This might be when you put the pen away in keyboard mode and use the touchpad, or in tablet mode to use just the arrow buttons for reading.) Worse yet, putting the pen in the holder often presses the tip, signaling a mouse click. If there are buttons or icons on that side of the screen, they sometimes get selected.
The screens vary in their feel and the pens in their weight. The perfect paper-like feel of drag for writing, without muddying up the image with ground glass, hasn't been perfected.
Some of the machines have built-in prop-up stands for reading on a desk in portrait mode, and others don't...yet. (I find that important.) We don't know enough about how many buttons are best, nor how to place them, though manufacturers are experimenting. I'm sure there are other physical attributes to be worked out.
As I pointed out in my First Impressions essay, the default values for things aren't always tuned to tablet use.
On top of all this, the weight and battery life still isn't down far enough, though the 4.25 lbs. of the Toshiba Tablet PC is much better than the 6 lbs. of the old GRiD Convertible. (Since both are normal convertibles with similar batter life, they are a good comparison.)
Why we'll see renewed advancement
In the early 1990's, innovation in tablet and pen computing moved at a rapid rate. Once the hardware and operating systems companies stopped pushing it, though, independent software developers stopped. Without constant trying of new things, and testing them in the marketplace, it is hard to have advancement. The main "new" thing you hear from Microsoft has been about their book reading software, developed for other purposes. While functionally similar to Slate's old PenBook and other products, Microsoft persevered in the image quality area to solve various problems and get a nice improvement in the eyes of many people. This improvement shows what happens when you keep trying.
The big thing from my viewpoint, though, is Microsoft's trying again and going to the trouble of integrating basic tablet and pen functionality into the latest version of Windows, and simultaneously driving better hardware with some minimum requirements. In addition, they are spending the time and money to upgrade their Office products with tablet-specific features and to provide a complete set of APIs for developers of other products.
If developers learn about what was done in the past, they can move ahead and produce better solutions to the problems we were addressing, and discover new areas to be covered. Software development is a continuous process of building on what came before, and then testing with real use. By Microsoft starting with an advanced ink application of the last generation, they've set the bar high enough to give people a boost. If they really leave things open for outside development (from both a technical and business viewpoint), and continue innovating themselves, new ideas can be tested and evaluated by the market. The fact that we now have good hardware with lots of marketing behind it means there will be at least some market for new software.
Remember what happened with the Internet as developers experimented with HTML after the early browsers came out. Compare what web sites looked like in 1994 and 1996 to today. (For example, compare the early browser-based web site authoring systems to later ones like Trellix's, and you'll see huge improvement.) Now that we have a basis to build upon, that type of advancement, like we saw in tablet and pen computing in the early 1990's, can resume where it left off.
- Dan Bricklin, 22 November 2002
the idea of buying a tablet PC during the now-dead Internet Appliance boom. I finally realised the offerings at the time weren't worth the money. A company, Qubit Incorporated (dead link, given for posterity) based out of Denver, Colorado had some very attractive offerings and made a very large splash at Comdex 2000. It would appear Qubit is now defunct. There seems to be very little actual demand for Tablet PCs, and demant will probably remain very low until they become *very* cheap.
The worst thing about MS Tablet PC is I don't make a dime off of them. All I get is people asking me for my opinon. Anyone want to buy some old copies of my demo software. HEY do any of you even know I created the spreadsheet!
Can you say Visicalc???
I'm a legend dam it!!!
Must... Resist... The... Urge... To... Make... Jokes...
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
as far as I'm concerned so far, is that Microsoft did a great job...of naming it.
Ahhh yes they stayed up all night, but it was worth it.
You mean you haven't case-modded your toilet yet? Hmmm, and you call yourself a slashdotter :-)
the thing with his little "MS did a great job... of naming it" line in his 'philosophical impressions' (fuck your philosophy, btw).
The rest of the article is pretty much praising different features and whatnot that he liked.
Sounds like someones pissed that another may succeed where they had failed.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Tablet PCs really don't have that big of a problem with battery life. Decent Tablets can run anywhere from 4 to 8 hours before recharging. Not exactly great, but better than most laptops on the market today.
I actually wasted (I mean 'took') the time to go to a TabletPC launch in Atlanta, and it wasn't half bad. The product concept is in the beginning stages, everyone knows that - even Microsoft. And to those who think they tried to totally steal the idea from the work of others, you need to get a clue. The Microsoft presentation included a fairly detailed history (basically a respectful look back) at the previous products in the genre. They didn't in any way act as if they came up with the idea. Hell, they even gave some props to the Apple product. :)
Basically, don't be so quick to jump on the 'let's bash MS' bandwagon; it's a bit tired. There are actually some very cool things going on with the TabletPC - it's just that the price and the batterly life are too prohibitive to be taken seriously with this generation (for me and most people I have talked to anyway...).
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
-see Headline-
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I saw that too. It was labeled Part I.
I can't wait for Part II to come out, so I can see what happens to me.
... but I think I'd really rather have a pocketpc style device with a larger screen to accomplish the same thing if it'd be cheaper. I'd end up spending an awful lot of money for something that I'd just use as a web browser/e-mail checker.
Thank you slashbots for the fair and unbiased review! *snicker*
Parent didn't mentioned linux at all. And worse of all, we can almost conclude that the poster support microsoft.
Because I know what an elipse is for.
And I know that pen based computing has been around for a long long time.
Put the two together and you realize... The only thing interesting Microsoft has done is trademark the name.
Other people have been marketing tablet PC's before Microsoft. They just didn't think to trademark something so obvious.
...Cause WaCom, they are a company that makes tablet PCs. Get it?
You can configure the Menu's for Left Handed, or Right Handed use. That'll get alot better as more applications build in TabletPC Support.
I've never used these devices, but won't the screen turn really oily/dirty since your hand/palm rests on it while writing stuff? Also, the normal lcd display has distortion when you press it hard. Isn't this a problem with the tablet PCs?
The law of excluded middle : Either I'm foo or I'm foobar
It is called paper. You should look into is sometime. It is great for taking notes!
It's become chic to bash microsoft. And probably the moment people are done bashing this they make note in their PocketPC that they drool for a tablet PC and post to slashdot using IE. They wouldn't be able to publicly admit they like anything touched by microsoft, for fear of being attacked by the zealots.
It does all the stuff the tablet pc does, but it is an addon-doodad for the Palm Pilot for a couple C notes.
Or don't you know about it?
What the hell do people want with these overpriced machines? The most of their usefulness to my understand would be as a coffee table computer. You sit in front of the TV and doodle during commercials.
I'm not a buyer. Perhaps if the price falls down to, say, $500.
I really think the tablet PCs would have to be thin clients to conserve battery life. I also don't think that a M$ OS is the way to go. The bloat in OS would just use up so much memory and processor cycles, that the battery life would suffer. A thin client, with just a web browser(intranet, limited internet) and maybe a few small apps, such as a calculator, or life support monitor, etc etc. This is assuming that a sales person or a medical professional is using the device.
/**You forgot my processor, you insensetive clod!*/, the new processors get HOT. Would you really hold a system like this, if it was reaching 150 degrees F? I wouldn't
Anything goes if someone is watching DVDs and running SETI@Home in the background while downloading the latest Harry Potter. I wouldnt expect the battery to last that long at all. Then again, the same goes for normal protables.
Another factor to consider is heat. If the WinXP OS is running all sorts of junk in the background, the system will heat up considerably. Much like thier desktop brothers, the new pentiums and athlons
But then again, this is nothing new. I think I've seen people with devices like this before. Usually, its all proprietary programs. They seem to work well, since its just a thin client with connections to a server somewhere.
What, me Tweet?
Tablet PC are just another miserable attempt to squize money from a stagnating market. It's the classical geek toy that after a week will land inside a drawer with 1" of dust over it.
He goes on about how there has been no innovation, and even if this is true, there has certainly been progress. He's comparing Tablet PCs to desktop attachments and PDA-style devices. This is the first time we're seeing this quality of hardware at this kind of price with a world-standard OS. Many of these Tablet PCs can even convert back and forth between laptops. Comparing them to an 8088 unit from decades passed or an LCD graphics tablet is a poor comparison.
I question the concept of a tablet or hand-held or similar type of computer, especially with a pen involved. A pen is for writing - I do not want a computer to write on. Why would I "write" on my computer?
When I receive a bill, I think, "Ah, I need to Pay that bill." The computer should do it.
When I envisage a new program, I think, "Ahh, yes that would be nice." The computer should make it for me.
Why do I always have to do things for the computer - He never does anything for me!!
The computer in a diferent clothes is not a different computer.
For about $1200, you can get an iBook with a 12" screen, max out its RAM (with 3rd party RAM, not Apple's) and an AirPort card.
I use mine everywhere in my house, including patio, bed, kitchen and crapper (don't laugh, I do my best thinking in there!)
The frst thing I thought of when I saw the headline was this.
It does everything a Laptop does, plus all the TabletPC Features.
What you want is a "Mira", which is essentially a WiFi enabled, LCD Touch Screen. It runs Windows CE and uses Remote Desktop to run everything on your desktop computer.
Hmmmm. Try a tortilla! That way you'll have a snack.
Stop posting to slashdot and type the notes into your computer!
A screen about the size of ... my Newton?
Those guys were so far ahead of their time.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
A quick search at www.uspto.gov using the words "Microsoft" and "Tablet" reveals one match for WindowsXP TabletPC Edition but NOT the actual term "TabletPC" as a separate trademark.
My new action plan:
1. Register "TabletPC" trademark
2. File infringement suit against MS
3. Accept big cash money settlement from MS
4. Profit!
Here is the copy from uspto.gov search:
Word Mark WINDOWS XP TABLET PC EDITION
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: computers, computer operating system programs and utilities, word processing programs, software for managing personal contact information, calendaring programs, calculator programs, terminal emulation programs, programs for downloading and playing audio and video, browser programs, programs for use in transmitting data between computers and other electronic devices, handwriting recognition software, speech recognition software, software programs for annotating documents; computer software, namely, interactive games playable on handheld computers, portable computers, desktop computers, personal digital assistants and digital cellular phones
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 78153878
Filing Date August 13, 2002
Filed ITU FILED AS ITU
Owner (APPLICANT) Microsoft Corporation CORPORATION WASHINGTON One Microsoft Way Redmond WASHINGTON 980526399
Attorney of Record William O. Ferron, Jr.
Prior Registrations 1872264;1875069
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
i just ordered a fujitsu, primarily for the screen and wacom stylus. maxed out the ram (768) and hard drive (40), and am ordering some software. as a mac user, i really wanted something light which i could connect a monitor and keyboard to in order to use as a desktop when necessary. i am curious what software you are running and what your experience has been speed-wise. thanks.
where the guy is ordering a car and the dude with the tablet PC is painting it on the fly? Yea, thats the one. I wonder what would happen if his tablet BSODed on him and every car he made was BOSD blue with 0x0000000A memory addresses over the car ala racing stripes.
That would be my car on Grand Turismo!
What, me Tweet?
LG Electronics, a division of Korean conglomerate LG and (IIRC) the top brand of electronics and electronic appliances worldwide, is going ape-shit for internet appliances. Their coming "Good Morning" kitchen set is all about internet connectivity, and LG is probably the largest purveyor of internet fridges as well (an idea that, if you put aside all the obvious "who the hell needs one of those?" crap, is actually kind of cool; you run out of milk, the fridge checks the local stores for the lowest price on your favorite brand of milk, and buys it for you to pick up or have delivered).
Even though we (in the US) probably have never heard of LG, if you use a Verizon or Sprint mobile phone it is most likely that you own an LG Electronics product and don't even know it. A lot of GE electronics and Sears/Kenmore appliances are also LG.
Anyway, LG plans on launching the LG Electronics brand in the US sometime next year, and you can be sure they'll be bringing all their kooky internet appliances with them.
There's no way I could swallow one of those!
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
So, if an open source project were to arise that did a better job of writing recognition, it could be a "killer app" that gets more of the mainstream PC users interested in Linux desktops.
Caveat: no, I'm not going to do it. My research area is security, not HCI.
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase
My AC post is squized between your post and the one below Ow!
I'm seeing a lot of questions like "Why would anyone want a tablet when you can just buy a laptop"?
The answer is simple: Because laptops SUCK for working in your lap.
Laptops are the most misnamed device ever. They are portable PCs. Useful, but difficult to use in any position other than in front of you -- like a PC.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Under OS X I sync and print from my Newt 2100 (to my Tibook) wirelessly using an old Wavelan Silver card. And believe it or not I have beta software (Everchanging Software) that allows me to sync my address book; and soon - my iCal.
So I've fully reactivated my trusty old 2100 and use it as my primary PDA again (yippee!)
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2002-11 -27
Although on the face of it this appears to be a very positive article, what strikes me is the very TEPID level of enthusiasm he exhibits.
It's hard to believe this is the wave of the future when the first kid on the block to have one can barely say more than "When I write in a way that my ink is readable (slowly and big), the recognition is surprisingly good, but not wonderful" and "[I was struck' with how little advance there had been since the last try for pen computers... the pen/tablet software and hardware aspects appear just a bit better..."
He keeps SAYING that what's been done is just great and important and bound to be the wave of the future, but it sure doesn't sound to me as if his heart is in it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Can we please bring the MS bashing to a reasonable level? Someone took a quote from the first paragraph of the review and slapped it into a story. If anyone bothered to read the article, they would see that he didn't have *anything* bad to say about the Microsoft part of the product. Of course, he had some suggestions about how to improve the hardware aspect of the product, but I was unable to find one instance where he critized Microsoft.
Let's be reasonable here. If Microsoft does something stupid or evil, let's post it. But if Microsoft puts out a new product, and the hardware manufacturer does a less-than-spectacular job of implementing it, don't blame Microsoft...
Or maybe you just need to go outside, take a DEEP breath of fresh air, and unplug for a while.
Sorry, but Microsoft ain't that bad. Sure, I don't like some of the things they've done, but they just don't matter that much. Or to put it another way, software don't matter that much in the great scheme of things, and Microsoft matter way less than that.
Furthermore, with the release of TabletPC, Microsoft has shown again that they simply can't innovate. Microsoft's TabletPC software is the same old stuff we had 10 years ago, only in a more bloated software incarnation. The only thing that has really gotten better is the hardware and processor speed, as well as the quality of real-time graphics those machines support.
Few if any of those patents should hold up if challenged in court, since most of the techniques had been used for quite some time by researchers before that. This is the usual case of a bunch of upstart startups not knowing what has been happening in academia and patenting like mad (Bricklin is aware of this). But that won't stop those patents from causing great harm: the threat of a lawsuit from Microsoft or Compaq/HP is sufficient to scare away investors from startups and to cause bigger players like Palm, Sony, or Apple to avoid certain features or functionality entirely.
While Compaq/HP holds some important patents, they are in bed with Microsoft. That means that Compaq/HP will willingly license their patents to Microsoft. Microsoft will use their patents to force other companies to adopt their TabletPC even if those other companies would have wanted to develop their own pen software. And for companies like Apple, who will likely develop their own software, Microsoft will use the threat of lawsuits to limit functionality and stifle their creativity: "you can only use our patents if you make this part of your software 'compatible' with ours".
- a Newton User -
I find that often I can't read MY OWN handwriting. I can't imagine a computer being able to interpret it in the near future.
imagine the next day...
Tablets, with the much bigger screens, will get tons more complaints from 10 to 20 percent of its users than PDA's do.
:/
What complaint? THE SCROLL BARS ARE ON THE RIGHT SIDE! IF YOU'RE LEFT HANDED, and you're writing or drawing, it will (is) a pain to scroll because your left hand blocks the action! And how many times do you scroll? I know that PDA's have smaller screens and that I can and do use the up/down buttons, but scrolling would be fun sometimes.
GEEZUS WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE ADDRESS THIS!!!!!
Cover your eyes and click this link!
owns pen patents?
These things aren't much more expensive than the Thin & Light notebooks that I tend to buy.
Comparing them to larger laptops, which are often cheaper, isn't really appropriate, in my mind. Those larger laptops may be more capable in terms of screen size, processor power, drive bays & sometimes battery life, but they aren't anywhere near as portable and are often to big to use on a plane or bus.
As for battery life, from what I have heard, the tablets do pretty well. They may not run all day on a charge, but they should get you through lunch.
My big problem with the tablets is that they are not good enough to be your primary PC, but the software & hardware isn't quite where it needs to be to mitigate that shortcoming.
What I would like to see is either:
1) A docking solution that uses a single flexible cable & software support to provide seamless desktop extension so you can use the tablet as a tablet while making use of a full sized monitor, mouse and keyboard. (Ideally this would be wireless, but that isn't going to work well enough to give decent video performance) Either the tablets lack a docking station, or they aren't very useable as tablets when they are docked.
2) Better cooperative computing so I can use my tablet in conjunction with another system. At the very least, I want file & preference synchronization/sharing between machines to be seamless, but process migration would be even better.
Gabe talks about using a Tablet PC to produce his comics.
For an example of a sketch made on it, go here
Where was the market demand for the Apple II?
Sometimes letting its developers decide that something is cool and should be made into a product is the worst decision a company can make. Sometimes it works out, and creates a new category of product that nobody imagined before. I can't really begin to guess which one this is going to be, except maybe noting that I don't want one. I also thought Netscape Navigator 1.0 was a stupid product, and that Netscape is doomed if it thinks it can make money on it.
I can't lie. I think the tablet PC's look pretty slick, but they are also kind of tricky. I really don't need a laptop. It is too big for me to whip out in my Circuit Theory class and IM my girlfriend to come to pick me up after class. However, a palm pilot is just right. I can pull it out, do something simple, and put it away.
Some of my friends don't like the palm though, they want a laptop. These are a good bit more expensive than a normal laptop, and don't seem to be that much more functional. So my friends who want or already use laptops, still think their laptops are a better deal. I just can't see anyone buying these while they are much more expensive than a laptop.
People who need a handheld will buy a handheld, and people who need a laptop will buy a laptop. This doesn't fully meet the needs of a palm-user, and it charges the laptop user more for functionality that is arguably useless.
Please add voice & handwriting recognition and 802.11b!
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Bricklin is concentrating on application development for PenPoint, and winds up giving short shrift to the OS it's self. It really was an innovative operating system, possibly the most unique one in the last 20 years. (OK, I realize that is a bold claim, and will produce a lot of argument, but bear with me...)
PenPoint was the first commercial OS where the user didn't interface with "applications" and "files". The primary interface element was the page. The user started with a blank page, and if she started writing, it would start translating the handwriting into test, like a word processing application. But if she drew a box, it would start graphing. The user could move through pages with a "flicking" gesture; use proof-reading typographical marks to edit. Very clever.
Microsoft borrowed some of the embedding for OLE, but they didn't actually get it. Or maybe they got it too clearly. They saw that an OS that didn't follow the application-launcher paradigm meant smaller sales for their Applications division.
Anyway, I didn't own one of these, so I may have gotten some details wrong. I just remember being impressed by the ideas behind it and was pained to see Microsoft's sorry-ass "Pen Windows" appear, kill PenPoint, then disappear like a serial killer.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
"Sorry, but Microsoft ain't that bad"
That would be where we disagree. What I am curious about is what you are comparing them to when you say "that bad".
"...but they just don't matter that much..."
Okay. I disagree with that, too, and I think the future will disagree as well. I've been known to be wrong, though. Maybe Microsoft will become a corporation for the people! Hurray!
_____ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Orwell
Maybe the fact that the user-interface of Linux is completely customizable will help see Linux widely adopted on the Tablet PCs.
The problem with Windows is that you must accept their user-interface, and it is not necessarily the best one for the task. The WinXP interface wasn't coded specifically for Tablet PCs. However, in Linux we can do just that, code a fresh new interface designed specifically to take advantage of the Tablet PC's strengths and weaknesses.
For instance, who is to say that radial menus aren't better for a Tablet application? Maybe a taskbar with a fixed location isn't a natural way to have things organized on a uni-directional screen. Perhaps a more natural or unobtrusive way can be found to organize UI elements (ever tried turning a clipboard over to write on it, resting your wrist on the big sharp metal clip? Trying to write on a Tablet PC and rest your wrist on an application taskbar is kind of like that.) Why not push the taskbars and toolbars behind the application's writing area, and only bring them forward when you need them?
The point is, you can't experiment like that in Windows, because much of the UI (taskbar placement, menu and button appearances and placement, locations of elements like scrollbars, etc etc.) are hard coded. On Linux, they are not. We can try anything new.
So why doesn't someone get out there and start designing a new window manager, one that is free form and open for experimentation, and designed specifically with Tablet PCs in mind?
Heck, it could develop into another major area where Linux has a unique (and uniquely superior) way of doing things.
Mars
TabletPC - $1,000
X Box Loss - $500
Gates' bank account - $500
Anyway... I'd not give up my WACOM tablet forever! PERIOD!
*sigh*
Who typically carry 10-40lbs of books around campus. As more and more textbooks are available on CD, this will enable folks to carry just a sinlge 2-4lb tablet with their text CD/DVDs.
Plus the ability to digitize notes, and later then search, edit, catagorize and store the notes, well when I was a science student I would have loved to have that ability (esp. areas like science & engineering where diagrams and drawings are frequently part of the notes, not so nice to do on a laptop, not to mention 100 students writing is much less distracting than 100 students typing).
I'd say numerous smaller markets exist as well in sales, medicine, presentors, etc., basically anywhere folks now use paper notepads or folders of similar size.
It also seems to me that with a docking station adding more functionality (2nd monitor, key board, etc.) one could see many laptops replaced by dockable tablets.
I know I am going to be looking at a few of these the next time I get authorized to get more laptops at work, if they are capable enough to edit presentations/present with, I'd love one!
has been making very nice draw on monitors for a few years now, which do quite well for hi-res drawings, we have one here that gets drawn on for several hours/day, for 6 months, no sign of wearing out yet.
I think the limit is in how well the handwriting recognition software works, not in the hardware.
Despite the fact that you have to keep your notes in a binder (heaven forbid) they're easier to manage, review, and use when they're on paper.
Huh? If the handwriting rec. works, you could search, edit, digitize and store your notes! I have a closet full of notebooks full of notes from college, man I wish I had all those in digital format!
Further, I'm not sure how the M$ software works ITR, but the Wacom software we use allows one to annotate a pic or a presentation, like a PDF or Powerpoint, and save the annotations with the file! Very nice for students, esp. if their text books are also in digital format that works with the annotation SW.
What I remember from those days is that pen computing was killed by FUD spread by Microsoft and Pen Windows. In those days, like the early days of the net, people were saying how Pen Computing was going to wipe out normal desktop computing. This would have left Microsoft SOL, so the FUD machine went to work and essentially killed the market by luring the gullible with the promise of commodity (cheaper) hardware running - tada! Pen Windows.
This, as well as a bunch of well-documented problems in some of the startups (read "Startup," it's a classic) dropped pen computing into the embedded/vertical application ghetto.
Will the tablet PC bring pen computing back? Not really...or if it does, well, too bad for everyone, because it's running Win32, the poster child for inappropriate code reuse. I can hear the conversation now:
"We need a new OS for a blender/coffeemaker combo."
"Why not use some MicroCruft?"
How is this innovation? To me it's moving in the opposite direction.. my palm pilot can do most of the things a tablet can.. an IPaq can do ALL of them.. and it's SMALL (I guess that making a palm device a laptop is inovation?) Typical of MS, take the old and call it innovation. Next thing, they will want us to go to dumb terminals running apps (oops, they are already trying to do that with .NET).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
And no, I won't stop. Oh.. and I'm not bothered either.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"I tried downloading Wacom's new driver for Tablet PCs that lets you set sensitivity, etc., but I had problems getting it to calibrate correctly for some reason."
FYI
Wacom has posted a new driver (4.75-9) that fixes his offset problem.
That most of the TabletPCs (all but HP/Compaq) use Wacom digitizers? HP/Compaq uses a FinePoint component.
The technology is already fairly mature. The price just needs to come down IMO. (I'm rarely humble)
That most of the TabletPCs (all but HP/Compaq) use Wacom digitizers?
The technology is already fairly mature. The price just needs to come down IMO. (I'm rarely humble)
I'm sure a lot of you have read this already, this being Slashdot and all...but Gabe over at Penny-Arcade recently acquired one of these crazy Tablet PC contraptions and was thrilled with it. See his post about it (below Tycho's) over at http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2002-11 -27. Apparently these things are great electronic sketch books for artists (not that many artists I know can afford the damned things...)
1) a real OS
The pen-based machines of 10 years ago (including Microsoft's own Windows for Pen Computing) used either desktop operating systems, or they used operating systems with equivalent power. Furthermore, many pen computing vendors have been shipping Windows-based pen computers over the last decade.
3) A nice, color, high-resolution display
4) Real networking capability.
5) a high-quality, high resolution digitizer
6) [lots of data storage]
Microsoft has merely specified what amounts to a state-of-the-art lightweight laptop. That's not any technical contribution they have made--it is due to the tireless improvements by lots of hardware vendors.
2) Real handwriting recognition that works as well as is possible given the state of the art
Microsoft's handwriting recognition is a mediocre, pretty sluggish engine. It may be the best you can get commercially, but only because Microsoft has pretty much removed the incentive for anybody else to do better. It is certainly not better than what people have developed in research labs.
You will probably see a number of replacement engines from a bunch of small companies that are equally mediocre, but most of the large players have effectively given up--if the only outlet is Microsoft platforms, what's the point of developing a better handwriting engine? The techniques also weren't developed by Microsoft--Microsoft just hired a bunch of smart people from other companies, companies that had given up on the market--and had them reimplement their work.
Basically, what it comes down to is that Microsoft is basking again in the glory of the nifty hardware that other companies have developed, and building on the results of competitors that they have driven out of the business, while they themselves have contributed essentially no innovation. That's how Microsoft and its market dominance kills innovation. And by failing to list a single technological contribution by Microsoft, even though you have tested lots of pen-based machines, you are making that point for me.
Let me add that you could get nice pen-based computers from Fujitsu and a few other vendors before the TabletPC spec. So it isn't even that Microsoft's effort catalyzed the creation of those machines. All Microsoft is really contributing is marketing dollars. And given their current software, TabletPC may well end up being a flop and damage pen computing as much as their last go at it did.
I remember the notes that I took on electrodynamics, quantum devices and other math-rich subjects... there is no way to convert them to text, ever.
Nor will you be able to for awhile, of course. Diagrams, formulae, etc. are stored as graphics. But the metadata text labels you place on those graphics can be converted, & allow you to search and catagorize those graphics.
In general, students won't benefit from the tablet PC.
O yeah right, I can't imagine any way for anyone to benefit from any technological advance. We really should go back to stamping ideograms on clay tablets, everything since then has cost much more than it has been worth.
It will be useful (because it is - these areas are already served [teklogix.com] by existing wireless terminals).
O yeah, no campus anywhere has thought of setting up a wireless network, and no one has ever released curricular materials for free... O and don't forget they can't be made to run linux while selling for less than $800.
Nope, you're right, college students will never want something like this, they like carrying around 50lb packs, spending $100-$500 per semester on books, and keeping all their notes on dead trees.
The Momenta machine had an an in house recognition layer on Windows only on the prerelase versions because there was no pen for Windows at that point. The few that were actually available through CompUSA actually used Pen for Windows which had finally been released.
Additionally, it was either PC Magazine or Byte who stated that the Momenta was the fastest (with the exception of the IBM ThinkPad tablet) at handwriting recognition.
Sorry, just reminiscing about the old days, lol.
As it happens I taught my 70 year old mother how to use a mouse just a few months ago.
"Ok, so I move the mouse and the pointer on the screen moves and when I click the button on the mouse the "logical" button on the desktop gets clicked. Cool, what's next?"
I think the entire exercise took less than a minute.
Perhaps *your* mom is a little slow?
KFG
Some things that I haven't seen covered here: First of all, I question the value of a review written by anyone after one day of using a new product. The only reason I can think of to do this is that it allows you to say glowing things about the product and still be "objective". Perfect for anyone being rewarded (directly or indirectly) by the vendor. What a potential buyer of any new device really needs is a review written after a few weeks of usage, that would be in this case: After the thing has been treated like a pad of paper for a while: Dropped a few times, been stacked with other materials including stapled paper and paper clipped paper and so forth, carried under ones arm for a while, tossed into the passenger seat of your car, thrown from that seat onto the floor when you slam on brakes thanks to that stupid driver in front of you. It needs to be evaluated after its run out of batteries a few times when you really needed it to keep working. One needs to know what a good "fall-back" plan is for the device (like always carry a real pad of paper with it, or a spare set of batteries, etc). Does the screen get scratched with use? That would be the case if like Palm devices it has a semi flexible plastic screen. Or is the screen hard like glass, scratch-proof, but easily broken in a fall? Do you HAVE to us a special pen with these? Won't a regular palmtop stylus do? or a fingernail in a pinch? I sometimes find in meeting that I take TOO many notes. When I get to a PC I can often summarize these notes with a sentence or two. How will this compare to loading all your notes, scribbles and all onto your PC for permanent review. Will I treasure or loath these added use of my disk space after a year or so? I think there is a future for these devices. Lord knows, the industry has shown a willingness to keep trying no matter how many times they get it wrong. The question is: Is this the time they finally get it right? Finally, after reading all the praise and contempt for Microsoft I haven't seen anyone else point out that there is very little risk for Microsoft here. They are only responsible for the operating system, and from what I can see its mostly a derivative of their other products. If it fails, no big deal for them. The hardware guys are taking all the $$ risk. They'll scratch and claw at one another until only one or two companies are making them at a profit. The worst thing that can happen for Microsoft is that price pressure will bring the average price for these things down to about $200 where they belong, at which point it won't be viable to run an expensive operating system on them. In the mean time MS will rake in the licensing fees. They'll do well in the medium term. I have no problem with a Microsoft that is forced (mostly against its will) to continue innovating, even if that innovation is largely just variations on a theme. The existence of open source alternatives is going to keep Microsoft honest from here on out. It will eventually transform them into a different company than they are now. Smaller, less critical to our infrastructure. If HP and a few others have to pay the price for Microsoft's continued success in the mean time, so be it, they did so quite willingly. There is already a non-MS box out there at a much lower price (made by a non-US company of course) and there will soon be more. I can wait.
Um, no. The parent was replying that they couldn't see any use for a Tablet PC apart from use as a "Coffee table computer" or for doodling during commercials. If that's what this person wants, then "Mira" is what he's looking for. That's the Niche Mira is designed to fill. My reply was strictly addressing the comment of the parent, in the "only" scenario he could see a Tablet PC being useful. TabletPC IS overkill for that scenario. And similarily, Mira is NOT a Laptop replacement, it's stricly for home/office use. Let's you essentially pick up your computer and use it from anywhere in the house. It is NOT for carting around the city, or across the country.
I like my tablet PC better than either a PDA or a laptop. It fits my needs. It also runs Linux.
As far as Linux stealing from M$ you're right in part.. but M$ steals from opensource dweebs too.. and other companies.. and then someone else steals the idea back. It's the way software evolves and is why software patents are bad. Also most Linux programs can be ported directly to Windows with ease, it's a lot more work to clone those Windows app to Linux because there is seldom source and when it does exist it's usually badly licensed and written so poorly as to be nearly worthless to port. Most Windows programmers just don't worry about portability the way opensource geeks do.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
educate yourselves.
the coolness of the idea of a TabletPC has NOTHING TO DUE with translating hand written text into type.
it is about keeping it handwritten and using it as if it was type. word searches and such.
if you want to convert it to type, you can. or not.
$2000 is not a lot of money.
Plus, they start at $1699.00
This looks to be great for school. I'm currently attending UNLV and on any given day I'm probably lugging around something like 40-50 pounds of books and notebooks. Imagine being able to have all of your class notes in one little laptop, and then if they put the books on it too, like through Adobe's e-book reader or something, that'd be great. I'd love to do that instead of carrying around 1 and sometimes 2 bags.
Not only that, but you can just email your notes to your friends if they were um... hungover^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsick. I'd love this. I'm going to wait until at least the second generation of these devices, but I can tell you now that the next pc that I buy will be a tablet (most likely one styled after Toshiba's, I still want to be able to have a keyboard for the essentials, like Q3 or Unreal).
Geek looks up from his PC after being shown the article:
"Handwriting? What's handwriting?"
As an aside, I've seen these at the CompUSA, and I've drooled on them already. Taking the "lap" requirement out of "laptop".
And suddenly the old Star Trek episodes, where the Captain signs on a Yeoman's clipboard feel sooo 60's.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.
Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading
it. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving
from where you left them to where you can't find them.
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