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Bricklin on Tablet PCs

Posted by michael on from the passing-fad dept.

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."

47 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Question... by Rew190 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Where exactly is the market demand for these?

    1. Re:Question... by Banjonardo · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Me.

      Students, people attending any form of lectures, people who want to check their e-mail on the couch, people who want to cruise the web on a coffee shop (so basically the same people who want laptops).

      It's also really, really spiffy. Or maybe I'm just gullible...

      --

      -----

      Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton

    2. Re:Question... by TheAncientHacker · · Score: 5, Informative

      Anybody who takes notes in meetings, anybody who needs to use a computer without a counter to put it down on. I know I'm seriously in lust.

    3. Re:Question... by GeckoFood · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For those of us whose employers do business in the retail sector, one application for these is a spiffy "clipboard" for the sales personnel, so that they can quickly bring up information about products and whatnot without dashing to a PC somewhere, or digging out a catalog, etc. If they are set up right, they can be a sort of instant catalog for the sales floor, especially since the weight of said systems is low enough to allow them to be carried all over the sales floor. Add in wireless connectivity, and you have a very convenient way to look up inventory data.

      --
      Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
    4. Re:Question... by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Where exactly is the market demand for these?"

      Me^3.

      - I'm an artist. I use a tablet to draw with right now. The ability to draw right on the screen would totally rock. Right now Wacom sells LCD tablets that plug into your VGA port, but they're in the $3,500 range.

      - I attend lots of meetings and drag a laptop around with me. I'd prefer a TabletPC so I can jot sketches along with notes. Right now I use paper and a scanner to do this, I'd like to skip the paper step.

      - I wouldn't mind having a Tablet PC around the house. The tablet form factor is much easier to tote around than the 'laptop-that-doesn't-really-sit-well-on-your-lap' approach.

      I don't know if I represent a 'whole big market' or not, but I can tell you that office-life would be easier with them. I'm certain these will start appearing in my office within the next 12 months.

    5. Re:Question... by puto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hospitals, medical offices.

      Any records that docs might need instead of putting the chart on the door, each doc gets his own and you can send it his patient list, their chart, all the details, ASAP. No need for records to send up the chart. No need for stationary PC.

      A Doc could have all his info point and click.

      Puto

      --
      The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
    6. Re:Question... by kh0ng · · Score: 5, Insightful
      There was a roadshow of the tablet on our university some days ago. They said the Tablet-PC would open "new markets", since people who usually avoid using computers because of the mouse (Have you ever tried to teach it to you mother? :-) now have a more "natural" way of interfacing with it - the pen. It's also more practical for carrying around than a laptop, since you can use hold it e.g. in your left arm and use the right hand to interface with it.

      They said one of the design goals was that it should be able to do everything that a normal pen-and-pad method can do. That includes the use-with-one-hand from above, but also hot-plugging (so you can always take it out of the docking station and run away...). Some of them can be used as a laptop as well, simply by turning the display around.

      They were pretty nice, and remindet me of the Pads they use in startreck. There are, however, still some useability-problems. The resolution of the EM-Sampler that checks for the pen is not very good at the edges, resulting in a "shaking" mouse cursor when holding the pen still. Another one is the right mouse button - the ones I held in my hands thought you want to press the right button if you didn't move the pen for some time. This resulted in context-menus that popped up when writing slow. Anotherone is the problem of your hand that overlapps some part of the screen when using the pen. Its annoying if menues keep opening right under your hand, so you have to move it away again to see whats on the screen.

      The text recognition was nice, but they mentioned a error-rate of 10-15%, so it's not really very useful, especially when writing fast. My opinion is that it's nice, but still needs some time to get "mature" and really useable.

    7. Re:Question... by Zeinfeld · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Where exactly is the market demand for these?

      If they work really well, huge. If they only sorta work, almost none.

      It is exactly the sort of situation where Microsoft has been able to clean up by making a previously obscure technology mainstream.

      Case in point was powerpoint. I used electronic slides back in the early days when you printed them out onto acetate one a $9000 printer. After Microsoft bundled Powerpoint into Office manufacturers started to make decent LCD projector displays (not the tatty things you stuck on to of an overhead projector).

      The idea of tablet PC is not new, but until now nobody has been able to make it mainstream.

      I strongly suspect that the problems of tablet resolution will be quickly sorted out. They may also be the catalyst for higher resolution displays - resolution as in dots per inch, not dots per screen. There are very few screens with 100dpi resolution, to make handwriting look good you need about 200dpi minimum.

      I suspect that the killer app for these PCs is to have something you can surf the web on while watching tv. After that, taking notes in a meeting.

      I have also seen them used in a presentation, they are pretty impressive used this way, you can draw on the slides to direct attention to one part or another.

      It should not take that much to get Linux up on one of the devices, but making the result work well is likely to be a lot of work.

      Another issue that is somewhat odd is that there does not appear to be an IBM tablet PC yet. Somewhat odd when you consider that IBM has been plugging this idea as assiduously as Gates.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    8. Re:Question... by EvanED · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >>What student would buy this instead of a PowerBook G4?

      Maybe because it's a tablet PC. I'm not sure about you, but I couldn't type notes. I need to write them. Which means that the G4's out.

      >>the tablet PC is $2,000 more than anybody would ever pay for it.

      Of course, I could have said the same thing about ENIAC: it was $450,000 more than anyone would pay. And I'd be wrong. Because there were people (the gov't) who built it. There are people who will buy the tablet PC because there's nothing else like it on the market, at least that I'm aware of. And the people who can afford it will spur development of more models that won't be expensive.

    9. Re:Question... by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why the hell couldn't you type notes? Even a very crappy touch typist (like 50-60 WPM) can type much faster than you can write or print. Typing for an hour is also alot easier on your hand than writing with a pen for an hour.

    10. Re:Question... by EvanED · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you saw my notes you'd see. I draw arrows to related stuff, to reorganize, etc.; draw pictures and stuff like mathematical symbols (let's see you type an integral or parital derivative faster than I can write one) and the like.

    11. Re:Question... by DuSTman31 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thing about prices is that they change.

      The primary market for these things seems to be for people who need to be able to record scribbles in a lecture or meeting. This is probably not a concept that needs huge amounts of computing power. People's buying decision will probably me made not on computing power, but mainly on price.

      The main consequence of this is that the prices of the most popular models will go down with competition, not up with increased specs.

      I agree it's not the sort of thing one would choose as a main machine, but as a second device for specific tasks, and that £2000 may be a bit much for a machine for this role, but the price they'll be in two years time probably won't be.

    12. Re:Question... by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, that wouldn't be such a great idea, considering the fact the tablet PCs would need to remain updated. How would you ask? I'm pretty sure the majority of people on here would reply to my question with "wireless netwworking". However, do remember these are hospitals we are talking about and you're not even allowed to carry regular mobile phones around due to interference with possibly sensitive equipment. (at least not here in The Netherlands) Do you think they'd allow the building to be saturated with possible harmful wireless transmission?

      --
      Hate me!
    13. Re:Question... by dmoynihan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oddly enough, Linux might have a real shot in the "larger pda/tablet market." There are stories out there about IBM's Meta Pad, as well reports of an AMD/China/Alchemy Semiconductor type thing... both situations where MS need not apply.

      Even the Lindows guy is talking about $500 tablets... though he's thinking handwriting recognition isn't needed.

      I think tablets look cool, and do have applications in medical/retail/industrial settings, but not for $2,000, not yet. Hoping Midori or whatever, plus other chip options, besides full-fledged Pentiums can get the cost down.

  2. The biggest problem... by dconder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:The biggest problem... by TheAncientHacker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, they've been optimizing for battery life on these for a while and they're pretty low power. Granted you won't get 12 hours of heavy use but if you're not using them to play DVDs all day, they should get you closer to 6 hours rather than the two you talk about.

    2. Re:The biggest problem... by NetJunkie · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've tested a couple of these for the office. With "extended" batteries most of them can run 8 hours. Not bad at all. Just put it in standby when walking around and you should be good to go all day.

  3. The REAL first tablet PC by sl+inferis · · Score: 5, Funny

    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)

    1. Re:The REAL first tablet PC by Tim+Browse · · Score: 5, Funny
      What really happened...

      "How did it go, Moses?"
      "Well...I've got him down to ten, but adultery's still in there."

      Tim

  4. Wow! by mao+che+minh · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dan Bricklin! I'm gonna run right out and buy one now, because Dan Bricklin reviewed it!!

    1. Re:Wow! by mao+che+minh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Only Bill Gates, of course. No one can match his uncanny vision and technological sense. He is a mastermind, and respect all of his decisions - especially when it comes to marketing.

  5. The screens are the right size... by dagg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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).

    --
    If you can see below your stomach...
    --
    Sex - Find It
  6. Re:Ok so Bill did a good job of naming it... by TheAncientHacker · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, the list of Microsoft trademarks at http://www.microsoft.com/trademarks/docs/mstmark.r tf does NOT list Tablet. Guess we all didn't know the answer to that one but were just making assumptions with no basis.

  7. Functionality over Internals. by Trusty+Penfold · · Score: 5, Interesting


    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 ... I'm sure when I upgrade, I will try and hack linux onto this thing [perhaps by then there will be video drivers!] but until then I don't want to break it.

    1. Re:Functionality over Internals. by istartedi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My new tablet computer (I got it 2 weeks ago) is so perfect it made me forget it is running XP

      It's interesting to hear somebody say that. I've thought for quite some time that we would reach a point where most people don't care or even know what OS is running. (Quick--what kind of circuit design is in your TV?). I think our expectations of what an OS and apps can do are just beginning to converge on some common items. By the time we reach a consensus, Microsoft will be as important as, oh... a car headlight manufacturer (Quick--who made the headlights in your car?).

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  8. In other news... by Whatsthiswhatsthis · · Score: 4, Funny

    Giant pad of paper reviewed. More at 11...

  9. Magnets by D4Vr4nt · · Score: 4, Funny

    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).

    Heck this might be the coolest fridge magnet yet! :D

    --
    R4NT.com - A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
  10. I'd entertained by Freston+Youseff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --

  11. Dan Bricklin said by ToasterTester · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!!!

  12. Come again? by 10Ghz · · Score: 5, Funny
    A pen-based desktop system that was part of the personal computer world came from Wang in 1988. Called Wang Freestyle...


    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.
  13. great job of naming it? by Jonny+Ringo · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  14. Take off the 'I hate Microsoft' goggles... by danielrm26 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  15. A few datasheets ... by MarcQ · · Score: 5, Informative
    ... in case you are as ignorant as I was about available Tablet PCs.
  16. Re:Dirty Fingers... by AzrealAO · · Score: 5, Informative

    The LCD's on TabletPC's are all covered with tempered glass. So you're not pressing down on the LCD Matrix at all. The Pen's are EMR Pens, like a Wacom Tablet, and the act of pressing down on the glass causes the stylus tip to press up into the pen itself. As for fingerprints, of course that's an issue. The Acer came with a nice microfibre, lint free cloth to wipe the screen with, and to be honest, it doesn't really get that bad.

  17. It's called paper. by DAldredge · · Score: 3, Funny

    It is called paper. You should look into is sometime. It is great for taking notes!

    1. Re:It's called paper. by EvanED · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If I have five notebooks full of notes, can I pull up an application that will search through them in a minute or two to find a particular fact that you want?

    2. Re:It's called paper. by SpectreGadget · · Score: 4, Informative

      Mod me down if you will, but...

      The Tablet PC's handwriting recognition is quite good and can recognize both my print and my cursive). What's better is you can leave your notes in digital ink format and the program converts and indexes the text in the background. Then when you need to find something, you do a search, and it will bring up the page(s) of your handwritten notes that match your search criteria. That is one of the powerful things about the Tablet. If I'm not mistaken, there is no Linux application that can do that. For now, at least.

      For all the M$ bashing that goes on here at /. it's amazing how many of the good Linux applications (that are touted here on /.) look just like their M$ counterparts.

      --
      Jim Harry
  18. Thin Clients by Rudy+Rodarte · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    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 /**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

    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?
  19. I think this guy missed the point. by Guspaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  20. Wha!? A *Tablet* PC? by mtec · · Score: 5, Funny


    There's no way I could swallow one of those!

    --
    Cake or Death? Cake Please!
  21. Opportunity to Crack the Desktop by Crispin+Cowan · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Tablet PCs strike me as an opportunity for Linux to crack the desktop market. From what I've read of initial impressions of Tablet PCs, the thing that sucks the most is the crappy Microsoft inking software, that is neither easy to learn to write for (sucks worse than Graffiti) nor will it learn your writing style (sucks worse than Newton).

    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

  22. Why the tablet? by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  23. MS Bashing Continues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

  24. if patents hold up, pen computing is in trouble by g4dget · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If the patents listed in Dan Bricklin's column hold up, then the pen computing area is in trouble. In particular, with Microsoft's purchase of Aha!, they own some pretty fundamental patents.

    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".

  25. Penny Arcade's review of Tablet PC by grum · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gabe talks about using a Tablet PC to produce his comics.

    For an example of a sketch made on it, go here

  26. Go's PenPoint was one of the great OS innovations by K8Fan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  27. 2nD college Students by MichaelPenne · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!