LyX attempts to be a ``What You See Is What You Mean'' graphical front-end to LaTeX, allowing an author / writer to concentrate on creating and editing text and marking it up in a meaningful fashion.
TeXmacs is a graphical program which attempts to provide a WYSIWYG emacs-like interface for accessing TeX's capabilities on-screen.
LyX is a lot more efficient and will run on even pretty old hardware, and has a nifty QT version which can be compiled to run natively on Mac OS X (in Aqua, modulo no Services &c. support) or Windows (the win32 port even supports Handwriting Recognition using Windows pen services---pretty cool for me on my Fujitsu pen slate;).
TeXmacs is kind of big and slow IME, and prone to crashing (but I've not tried it lately---probably this has gotten better).
They're both free and are complimentary in nature---I _really_ think LyX is the most innovative opensource project out there, but it strikes a chord in me and I find it invaluable at work for getting people to be willing to help out on my TeX-oriented projects;)
Setting up TeX is trivial these days---there're pre-compiled binaries for pretty much everything, and if you've got a system which isn't covered by TUG's (the TeX User Group) TeXLive, you're either setting TeX up on a Sharp Zaurus (doable), or on a NeXT (which provided TeX as an installable package, and had a really nice graphical interface, TeXView.app, now improved by Dmitri Linde's InstantTeX).
Take a look at http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio/typogra phy/ and look into my portfolio---pick out what's typeset in TeX and what's not w/o reading the descriptions. You can get those by going to the main link http://members.aol.com/willadams and navigating to my Portfolio.
For those using LaTeX, fontinst has gotten _much_ better and is now very nicely documented in Philipp Lehman's wonderful tutorial (see my list of texts on typography in my Bibliography / Books listing)
Many typeface styles are available w/ a default TeX install w/ a one-line change:
\usepackage{mathptmx} gets one Times for text, w/ Symbol and Computer Modern for mathematics (more or less)
\usepackage{mathpazo} gets Palatino for text, Euler and Computer modern and some specially drawn symbols for math (more or less)
\usepackage{eulervm} accesses the wonderful Euler fonts
Just look at the docs for PSNFSS included w/ your TeX setup.
The situation isn't as simple or straightforward as that, and in may ways, it's much worse (TeX documents taken by a publisher, poured into Word for copyediting, then typeset in Quark w/ all equations reset using proprietary XTensions such as PowerMath or York Graphics' XMath).
Opensource software in many ways is catching up and surpassing Word---LyX, http://www.lyx.org is one of the most promising and innovative, a ``What You See Is What You Mean'' document processor, it's actually used by some compositors to make LaTeX documents accessible to mere mortals so that they may then by typeset using the publisher's style---let me know what you think of Kaplan's _Introduction to Scientific Computation_, just released;)
No, 72 is just as divisible, (6 pairs of numbers, like 60).
The difference is 60 fits in better w/ a 10s based / decimal system.
72 has the advantage of being more readily sub-divided into integer units, that's why it's the basis for the point sytem (72.27 per inch for printer's points, 72 per inch in the PostScript system inagurated by John Warnock to make calculations easier in PostScript interpreters).
William
``How a modem works'' chapter recycled
on
Online! The Book
·
· Score: 1
(probably) from Dvork's classic guide to PC Telecommunications, a mainstay back in the days of BBSs.
Posted this to usenet:comp.sys.mac.advocacy when this was first mentioned there:
Interesting column. First, I don't see the TabletPC as ``failed'' --- not quite where some overly optimistic pundits projected, but, e.g., Fujitsu's pen division continues to have strong sales _and_ to be profitable.
The article overlooks a couple of things though, which support Apple's (strong, I believe) potential position for a tablet:
InkWell - bundled w/ Jaguar and later, it's wholely owned by Apple and adds zero cost. By contrast, Microsoft is licensing the Calligrapher recognition from Paragraph, and charging OEMs more for Windows XP Tablet PC edition than for standard Windows XP.
compatibility - w/ Windows for Pen Services in Windows 95/98, it's hit or miss which apps will accept HWR---examples range from working perfectly in 95 and slightly crippled in 98 (Dirk Stuve's WinTexShell---the contextual pen menu for selected text doesn't work in 98), to non-functional w/ awkward work-around (FutureWave's SmartSketch garbles any attempt to write into a text field, but one can write into a WordPad OLE object) to just plain broken (the Windows QT version of Sbook5 from www.sbook5.com (may not be available any longer, haven't checked in a while) crashes when one attempts to write into it).
By contrast, apparently all apps in Jaguar which accept keyboard input work w/ InkWell---can anyone confirm or provide counter-examples?
processor power / battery life - PowerPC has marked advantages for portable operation (though this is ameliorated somewhat by recent x86 chip developments)
App extensibility - where Microsoft has to convince people to write apps especially for TabletPC, Apple can merely upgrade the relevant Foundation Class objects w/ pen support et voila! all Cocoa apps are pen apps.
I also suspect that a Cocoa program like NoteBook.app or NoteTaker.app could become a far more natural and powerful program than Microsoft Journal is shaping up to be (would someone explain why it's necessary to add OneNote to the mix?).
--- end of usenet post ---
Apple could do a pen convertible just by engineering a double hinge for the 12" iBook or PowerBook and adding an LCD w/ Wacom digitizer---the software and all is already in place and it'd ``just work''.
With all that said, I doubt Apple will do a tablet anytime soon (though I'd dearly love to see an iMac w/ a detachable display w/ a processor, memory, flash storage, and Bluetooth connection to the base w/ functions as a dual-processor machine when connectd (but apparently bandwidth is still a problem for this?)), so when it was time to buy a new machine recently, rather than wait for the PowerBook G3 my sister is giving my wife, I got a Fujitsu Stylistic.
If I hadn't posted, if I still had karma points, and if there were a mod for ``pedantic'', you'd've gotten my vote;)
Sorry, for the error and thanks for the (corrected) correction---it's been a long while since I read the book (need to remember to add a link to it from my web site).
That was why Tim Berners-Lee wanted URL to stand for ``Universal'' (not Uniform) Resource Locator.
The problem is, few people have formal training as librarians, or understand how to file away a document under such schemes (whether or no pages like this are worth preserving is another issue entirely).
Then there's the technical issue---where's the central repository? Who ensures things are correctly filed? Who pays for it all?
With all that said, I'll admit that I use Google's cache for this sort of thing---it lacks the formal hierarchy, but the search capabilities ameliorate this lack somewhat. It does fail when one wants a binary though (say the copy of Fractal Design Painter 5.5 posted by an Italian PC magazine a couple of years ago).
Moreover, this is the overt, long-term intent behind Google, to be the basis for a Star Trek style universal knowledge database---AI is going to have to get a lot better before the typical person's expectations are met, but in the short term, I'll take what I can get.;)
Well, if you're willing to accept default installation, NeXT/OPENstep can't---you had to install third-party software (e.g., Cub'X) to get access to X Window software.
Mac OS X shares this difficiency up through Jaguar (had to go get X11.app or use Fink), though w/ Panther it's an optional install.
I don't think your examples hold up that well if you consider things in context---the appearance of Microsoft Windows has changed markedly since the days of Windows 1.0, but your main point is interesting.
While the Mac OS hasn't changed quite as drastically, there's quite a world of difference between the appearance of the screen of the Mac SE upstairs, and the PowerBook G3 on my wife's desk. You're also giving Apple rather short shrift---they completely changed things between the character based Apple ][ and the Lisa and then the Macintosh---arguably, Microsoft deserves similar consideration for the shift from MS-DOS to Windows.
Basic UI considerations aren't quite as important as consistency, and some low-level plumbing to ensure things work---contrast Windows 95 and NeXTstep, both are superficially quite similar in appearance, yet NeXTstep works much more efficiently in a synergistic fashion enabled by the consistent and customizable UI (tear off menus!) and considerations such as Services. ``Optimally the GUI would be very configurable, as well as being appealing to the eyes, and efficient in every sence of the word.'' Describes NeXTstep to a ``T'';)
Further, while Windows and the Mac OS had contextual menus and the ability to add to them, these are never as pervasive as Services in NeXTstep and so can't get the leverage needed to really, ``click'' with users.
It's rather unfortunate that more study isn't made of HP's New Wave UI which was amazingly good (even rated higher on object-orientation than NeXTstep by one computer magazine dedicated to object oriented programming), or of Go Corporation's PenPoint. Similarly OS/2 was (is) quite good---managed to get through one tech support call for a user who wanted to install a new printer despite never having used OS/2---the system had been set up by another tech, and we didn't have any machines running OS/2 in the shop.
Actually, she was reputed to be quite the babe when she was younger.
I was fortunate to hear her speak once---she passed out lengths of wire, explaining how they related to how far light could travel in a given timeframe and how that related to the speeds of computers---way cool when you're just 8 years old;)
She even lit up a Lucky Strike on-stage though, so may not fit in with today's PC role models:(
I've been putting forward the idea that it would _not_ cost Apple much to do a pen convertible, and that the potential benefits are win-win.
- Apple already includes InkWell (nee Rosetta, the print recognizer from Newton OS 2.0), Microsoft is _licensing_ Calligrapher (the cursive recognizer from Newton OS) from Paragraph
- Apple doesn't have to muck around w/ things like the Transmeta chip to get decent battery life
- all Apple has to do is engineer an elegant double-hinge (idealy improving on the recent spate of IBM laptop concepts), adding pen-centric UI touches is gravy
- Berkeley center for Graphical User Interface Research has done a number of projects explorying pen UI concepts---using Java, Apple's Mac OS X just happens to have a very nice Java implementation....
William (who finally broke down and got a Fujitsu Stylistic, but had considered an iBook w/ Wacom ArtPad)
Back when people like NCR were making dual-platform pen computers such as the NCR-3125, MS licensed Windows less expensively if a manufacturer licensed Windows for _all_ of their machines, which most (all?) did.
That meant that Windows for Pen Computing was essentially free w/ a machine, but if one wanted PenPoint, one had to pay extra for that, even if one didn't get Windows for Pen Computing (dual-boot setup).
I'm baffled that Microsoft is re-creating this scenario by pricing Windows XP for Tablets higher than Windows XP for anything else, especially when one of the promises of the pre-Windows 95 era was that pen computing would be bundled by default.
My guess here is that they're paying extra for bundled software / technologies---don't they have to license Paragraph's Calligrapher HandWriting Recongnition?
I'm pretty sure they bought Aha! Software outright though (sure wish I could find a copy of InkWriter... for Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing), so that (morphed into Journal) shouldn't be it.
That said, I find my Fujitsu Stylistic quite nice, and've almost finished transitioning to it (now my NeXT Cube is relegated to network services / driving a NeXTLaser (and the odd bit of PostScript illustration or interactive TeX work), my ThinkPad has gone to my wife, my daughter is getting my Newton MessagePad, and I've connected my Wacom ArtZ to my wife's Mac for the kids to use w/ Disney Magic Artist....)
William (who'd've bought an iBook or PowerBook if Apple would just break down and make a pen convertible, ironically they bundle InkWell for free w/ Jaguar---they should just add some additional pen-oriented UI (gestures))
Everything is then electronic and retrievable from the get-go. Good for the economy, efficiency, morale---everything but the bottom line on healthcare costs in the short run;)
William (who just finished a nightmarish rush project which became so 'cause the boss tried to outsource it and the overseash shop mangled the nice LaTeX job using Quark XPress)
Naturally a keyboard is better for mass data entry, that goes w/o saying (esp. if it's a Dvorak keyboard).
Being able to hide away the keyboard and use a pen instead is a big win flexibility / portability wise (use while standing w/ system held naturally like a clipboard, use while interviewing or when taking notes in a class w/o throwing up the ``video wall'' and being considered rude, &c.)
I type quickly too, but it's a nuisance to switch between mouse and keyboard when (for example) annotating.pdfs.
It's also a lot more convenient to just directly draw / sketch on a pen slate, than to draw in a paper notebook, go find a scanner, scan the drawing, import the drawing into a drawing program and then _redraw_ it (I'm fortunate to have a copy of FutureWave's SmartSketch, one of the coolest of PenPoint programs;)
Also, on your father's MessagePad are you using Rosetta (the print recognizer which survives (as is) in InkWell), or Calligrapher (the cursive recognizer which is used (greatly improved) in Microsoft's TabletPC)?
I actually considered going w/ an iBook (got to use a couple at TUG2003 in Hawai'i and thought the 12" model was a good fit---found the 14" too big, guess I'm still remembering my Sharp PC-6220, the first truly usable laptop (and I had a GRiDCase III plus, NEC Ultralite and Toshiba 1200xe before that)).
But, I'd have to haul around a separate graphics tablet (at least these days w/ USB you don't need a wall-wart power supply like my ThinkPad and Wacom ArtZ did), and the handwriting recognition is ``merely'' the print recognizer from Newton OS 2.x and doesn't learn, and there's no built-in support for gestures beyond basic editing for other aspects of pen UI.
Surely Apple could engineer a nice double-hinge setup which was elegant, durable, reliable and innovative (look at recent stories on interesting laptop designs from IBM as examples of what they should surpass).
So, I got a Fujitsu Stylistic instead, at least I didn't have to compromise and get a convertible, but got a true slate---for Mac OS X, I'd probably compromise though, especially if they added further pen-specific aspects to the UI.
I really miss PenPoint though (ran it on an NCR-3125), and have always kind of wished that Go had teamed up with HP, and that NeXT had gone w/ PenPoint for their portables (say w/ some kind of synch arrangement like to the Palm Pilot).
Yep, you wouldn't believe the effort involved in getting from author manuscript to decently typeset text (just finished a nightmarish rush job at work, 560 pgs. of Matlab programs and commentary and explanation of how to do scientific computation and even after six weeks of production I got a folder full of blueline corrections which had to be done before going to press).
Of course, I'll leave untold (for now) the story of how it became a nightmarish rush job when my boss tried to outsource a book done in LaTeX to a company which tried to typeset it in Quark XPress---you can find something of it in my recent posts to usenet:comp.text.tex, the balance should make a screamingly funny article for TUGboat (italic equal signs in equations, superscripts in line w/ x-height, equations set in Computer Modern Roman scanned and placed in with Times Roman (the outsource Co. couldn't spring for Times Ten as specced apparently)!)
Slashdot Mirror
They're _very_ different programs.
;).
;)
LyX attempts to be a ``What You See Is What You Mean'' graphical front-end to LaTeX, allowing an author / writer to concentrate on creating and editing text and marking it up in a meaningful fashion.
TeXmacs is a graphical program which attempts to provide a WYSIWYG emacs-like interface for accessing TeX's capabilities on-screen.
LyX is a lot more efficient and will run on even pretty old hardware, and has a nifty QT version which can be compiled to run natively on Mac OS X (in Aqua, modulo no Services &c. support) or Windows (the win32 port even supports Handwriting Recognition using Windows pen services---pretty cool for me on my Fujitsu pen slate
TeXmacs is kind of big and slow IME, and prone to crashing (but I've not tried it lately---probably this has gotten better).
They're both free and are complimentary in nature---I _really_ think LyX is the most innovative opensource project out there, but it strikes a chord in me and I find it invaluable at work for getting people to be willing to help out on my TeX-oriented projects
William
Setting up TeX is trivial these days---there're pre-compiled binaries for pretty much everything, and if you've got a system which isn't covered by TUG's (the TeX User Group) TeXLive, you're either setting TeX up on a Sharp Zaurus (doable), or on a NeXT (which provided TeX as an installable package, and had a really nice graphical interface, TeXView.app, now improved by Dmitri Linde's InstantTeX).
a phy/ and look into my portfolio---pick out what's typeset in TeX and what's not w/o reading the descriptions. You can get those by going to the main link http://members.aol.com/willadams and navigating to my Portfolio.
Take a look at http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio/typogr
For those using LaTeX, fontinst has gotten _much_ better and is now very nicely documented in Philipp Lehman's wonderful tutorial (see my list of texts on typography in my Bibliography / Books listing)
Many typeface styles are available w/ a default TeX install w/ a one-line change:
\usepackage{mathptmx}
gets one Times for text, w/ Symbol and Computer Modern for mathematics (more or less)
\usepackage{mathpazo}
gets Palatino for text, Euler and Computer modern and some specially drawn symbols for math (more or less)
\usepackage{eulervm}
accesses the wonderful Euler fonts
Just look at the docs for PSNFSS included w/ your TeX setup.
William
The situation isn't as simple or straightforward as that, and in may ways, it's much worse (TeX documents taken by a publisher, poured into Word for copyediting, then typeset in Quark w/ all equations reset using proprietary XTensions such as PowerMath or York Graphics' XMath).
;)
Opensource software in many ways is catching up and surpassing Word---LyX, http://www.lyx.org is one of the most promising and innovative, a ``What You See Is What You Mean'' document processor, it's actually used by some compositors to make LaTeX documents accessible to mere mortals so that they may then by typeset using the publisher's style---let me know what you think of Kaplan's _Introduction to Scientific Computation_, just released
William
No, 72 is just as divisible, (6 pairs of numbers, like 60).
The difference is 60 fits in better w/ a 10s based / decimal system.
72 has the advantage of being more readily sub-divided into integer units, that's why it's the basis for the point sytem (72.27 per inch for printer's points, 72 per inch in the PostScript system inagurated by John Warnock to make calculations easier in PostScript interpreters).
William
(probably) from Dvork's classic guide to PC Telecommunications, a mainstay back in the days of BBSs.
Sad.
William
You forgot option D) Serve the public good as a repository for books which would otherwise be unavailable to the public.
That's the loss.
William
Posted this to usenet:comp.sys.mac.advocacy when this was first mentioned there:
Interesting column. First, I don't see the TabletPC as ``failed'' --- not quite
where some overly optimistic pundits projected, but, e.g., Fujitsu's pen
division continues to have strong sales _and_ to be profitable.
The article overlooks a couple of things though, which support Apple's (strong,
I believe) potential position for a tablet:
InkWell - bundled w/ Jaguar and later, it's wholely owned by Apple and adds
zero cost. By contrast, Microsoft is licensing the Calligrapher recognition
from Paragraph, and charging OEMs more for Windows XP Tablet PC edition than
for standard Windows XP.
compatibility - w/ Windows for Pen Services in Windows 95/98, it's hit or miss
which apps will accept HWR---examples range from working perfectly in 95 and
slightly crippled in 98 (Dirk Stuve's WinTexShell---the contextual pen menu for
selected text doesn't work in 98), to non-functional w/ awkward work-around
(FutureWave's SmartSketch garbles any attempt to write into a text field, but
one can write into a WordPad OLE object) to just plain broken (the Windows QT
version of Sbook5 from www.sbook5.com (may not be available any longer, haven't
checked in a while) crashes when one attempts to write into it).
By contrast, apparently all apps in Jaguar which accept keyboard input work w/
InkWell---can anyone confirm or provide counter-examples?
Also, the above doesn't reflect experience w/ TabletPC---has anything changed
markedly?
processor power / battery life - PowerPC has marked advantages for portable
operation (though this is ameliorated somewhat by recent x86 chip developments)
App extensibility - where Microsoft has to convince people to write apps
especially for TabletPC, Apple can merely upgrade the relevant Foundation Class
objects w/ pen support et voila! all Cocoa apps are pen apps.
I also suspect that a Cocoa program like NoteBook.app or NoteTaker.app could
become a far more natural and powerful program than Microsoft Journal is
shaping up to be (would someone explain why it's necessary to add OneNote to
the mix?).
--- end of usenet post ---
Apple could do a pen convertible just by engineering a double hinge for the 12" iBook or PowerBook and adding an LCD w/ Wacom digitizer---the software and all is already in place and it'd ``just work''.
With all that said, I doubt Apple will do a tablet anytime soon (though I'd dearly love to see an iMac w/ a detachable display w/ a processor, memory, flash storage, and Bluetooth connection to the base w/ functions as a dual-processor machine when connectd (but apparently bandwidth is still a problem for this?)), so when it was time to buy a new machine recently, rather than wait for the PowerBook G3 my sister is giving my wife, I got a Fujitsu Stylistic.
William
If I hadn't posted, if I still had karma points, and if there were a mod for ``pedantic'', you'd've gotten my vote ;)
Sorry, for the error and thanks for the (corrected) correction---it's been a long while since I read the book (need to remember to add a link to it from my web site).
William
That was why Tim Berners-Lee wanted URL to stand for ``Universal'' (not Uniform) Resource Locator.
;)
The problem is, few people have formal training as librarians, or understand how to file away a document under such schemes (whether or no pages like this are worth preserving is another issue entirely).
Then there's the technical issue---where's the central repository? Who ensures things are correctly filed? Who pays for it all?
With all that said, I'll admit that I use Google's cache for this sort of thing---it lacks the formal hierarchy, but the search capabilities ameliorate this lack somewhat. It does fail when one wants a binary though (say the copy of Fractal Design Painter 5.5 posted by an Italian PC magazine a couple of years ago).
Moreover, this is the overt, long-term intent behind Google, to be the basis for a Star Trek style universal knowledge database---AI is going to have to get a lot better before the typical person's expectations are met, but in the short term, I'll take what I can get.
William
Well, if you're willing to accept default installation, NeXT/OPENstep can't---you had to install third-party software (e.g., Cub'X) to get access to X Window software.
Mac OS X shares this difficiency up through Jaguar (had to go get X11.app or use Fink), though w/ Panther it's an optional install.
William
I don't think your examples hold up that well if you consider things in context---the appearance of Microsoft Windows has changed markedly since the days of Windows 1.0, but your main point is interesting.
;)
While the Mac OS hasn't changed quite as drastically, there's quite a world of difference between the appearance of the screen of the Mac SE upstairs, and the PowerBook G3 on my wife's desk. You're also giving Apple rather short shrift---they completely changed things between the character based Apple ][ and the Lisa and then the Macintosh---arguably, Microsoft deserves similar consideration for the shift from MS-DOS to Windows.
Basic UI considerations aren't quite as important as consistency, and some low-level plumbing to ensure things work---contrast Windows 95 and NeXTstep, both are superficially quite similar in appearance, yet NeXTstep works much more efficiently in a synergistic fashion enabled by the consistent and customizable UI (tear off menus!) and considerations such as Services. ``Optimally the GUI would be very configurable, as well as being appealing to the eyes, and efficient in every sence of the word.'' Describes NeXTstep to a ``T''
Further, while Windows and the Mac OS had contextual menus and the ability to add to them, these are never as pervasive as Services in NeXTstep and so can't get the leverage needed to really, ``click'' with users.
It's rather unfortunate that more study isn't made of HP's New Wave UI which was amazingly good (even rated higher on object-orientation than NeXTstep by one computer magazine dedicated to object oriented programming), or of Go Corporation's PenPoint. Similarly OS/2 was (is) quite good---managed to get through one tech support call for a user who wanted to install a new printer despite never having used OS/2---the system had been set up by another tech, and we didn't have any machines running OS/2 in the shop.
William
There are a fair number of TeX based presentation packages---
. pdf
t expower.xm l
e sentations.h tml
- prosper
www.biostat.harvard.edu/~ebrown/latexpre
- texpower
http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/pkgs/dev-tex/
and here's a link of various solutions:
http://www.miwie.org/presentations/pr
William
Point your browser to http://www.creaturehouse.com and read the fine print.
I _really_ hope this doesn't mean that Expression will die a second death...
William
Actually, she was reputed to be quite the babe when she was younger.
;)
:(
I was fortunate to hear her speak once---she passed out lengths of wire, explaining how they related to how far light could travel in a given timeframe and how that related to the speeds of computers---way cool when you're just 8 years old
She even lit up a Lucky Strike on-stage though, so may not fit in with today's PC role models
William
::applause::
I've been putting forward the idea that it would _not_ cost Apple much to do a pen convertible, and that the potential benefits are win-win.
- Apple already includes InkWell (nee Rosetta, the print recognizer from Newton OS 2.0), Microsoft is _licensing_ Calligrapher (the cursive recognizer from Newton OS) from Paragraph
- Apple doesn't have to muck around w/ things like the Transmeta chip to get decent battery life
- all Apple has to do is engineer an elegant double-hinge (idealy improving on the recent spate of IBM laptop concepts), adding pen-centric UI touches is gravy
- Berkeley center for Graphical User Interface Research has done a number of projects explorying pen UI concepts---using Java, Apple's Mac OS X just happens to have a very nice Java implementation....
William
(who finally broke down and got a Fujitsu Stylistic, but had considered an iBook w/ Wacom ArtPad)
Back when people like NCR were making dual-platform pen computers such as the NCR-3125, MS licensed Windows less expensively if a manufacturer licensed Windows for _all_ of their machines, which most (all?) did.
That meant that Windows for Pen Computing was essentially free w/ a machine, but if one wanted PenPoint, one had to pay extra for that, even if one didn't get Windows for Pen Computing (dual-boot setup).
I'm baffled that Microsoft is re-creating this scenario by pricing Windows XP for Tablets higher than Windows XP for anything else, especially when one of the promises of the pre-Windows 95 era was that pen computing would be bundled by default.
My guess here is that they're paying extra for bundled software / technologies---don't they have to license Paragraph's Calligrapher HandWriting Recongnition?
I'm pretty sure they bought Aha! Software outright though (sure wish I could find a copy of InkWriter... for Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing), so that (morphed into Journal) shouldn't be it.
That said, I find my Fujitsu Stylistic quite nice, and've almost finished transitioning to it (now my NeXT Cube is relegated to network services / driving a NeXTLaser (and the odd bit of PostScript illustration or interactive TeX work), my ThinkPad has gone to my wife, my daughter is getting my Newton MessagePad, and I've connected my Wacom ArtZ to my wife's Mac for the kids to use w/ Disney Magic Artist....)
William
(who'd've bought an iBook or PowerBook if Apple would just break down and make a pen convertible, ironically they bundle InkWell for free w/ Jaguar---they should just add some additional pen-oriented UI (gestures))
Everything is then electronic and retrievable from the get-go. Good for the economy, efficiency, morale---everything but the bottom line on healthcare costs in the short run ;)
William
(who just finished a nightmarish rush project which became so 'cause the boss tried to outsource it and the overseash shop mangled the nice LaTeX job using Quark XPress)
Naturally a keyboard is better for mass data entry, that goes w/o saying (esp. if it's a Dvorak keyboard).
Being able to hide away the keyboard and use a pen instead is a big win flexibility / portability wise (use while standing w/ system held naturally like a clipboard, use while interviewing or when taking notes in a class w/o throwing up the ``video wall'' and being considered rude, &c.)
And if one does much drawing at all....
William
I type quickly too, but it's a nuisance to switch between mouse and keyboard when (for example) annotating .pdfs.
;)
It's also a lot more convenient to just directly draw / sketch on a pen slate, than to draw in a paper notebook, go find a scanner, scan the drawing, import the drawing into a drawing program and then _redraw_ it (I'm fortunate to have a copy of FutureWave's SmartSketch, one of the coolest of PenPoint programs
Also, on your father's MessagePad are you using Rosetta (the print recognizer which survives (as is) in InkWell), or Calligrapher (the cursive recognizer which is used (greatly improved) in Microsoft's TabletPC)?
William
I actually considered going w/ an iBook (got to use a couple at TUG2003 in Hawai'i and thought the 12" model was a good fit---found the 14" too big, guess I'm still remembering my Sharp PC-6220, the first truly usable laptop (and I had a GRiDCase III plus, NEC Ultralite and Toshiba 1200xe before that)).
But, I'd have to haul around a separate graphics tablet (at least these days w/ USB you don't need a wall-wart power supply like my ThinkPad and Wacom ArtZ did), and the handwriting recognition is ``merely'' the print recognizer from Newton OS 2.x and doesn't learn, and there's no built-in support for gestures beyond basic editing for other aspects of pen UI.
Surely Apple could engineer a nice double-hinge setup which was elegant, durable, reliable and innovative (look at recent stories on interesting laptop designs from IBM as examples of what they should surpass).
So, I got a Fujitsu Stylistic instead, at least I didn't have to compromise and get a convertible, but got a true slate---for Mac OS X, I'd probably compromise though, especially if they added further pen-specific aspects to the UI.
I really miss PenPoint though (ran it on an NCR-3125), and have always kind of wished that Go had teamed up with HP, and that NeXT had gone w/ PenPoint for their portables (say w/ some kind of synch arrangement like to the Palm Pilot).
William
Yep, you wouldn't believe the effort involved in getting from author manuscript to decently typeset text (just finished a nightmarish rush job at work, 560 pgs. of Matlab programs and commentary and explanation of how to do scientific computation and even after six weeks of production I got a folder full of blueline corrections which had to be done before going to press).
Of course, I'll leave untold (for now) the story of how it became a nightmarish rush job when my boss tried to outsource a book done in LaTeX to a company which tried to typeset it in Quark XPress---you can find something of it in my recent posts to usenet:comp.text.tex, the balance should make a screamingly funny article for TUGboat (italic equal signs in equations, superscripts in line w/ x-height, equations set in Computer Modern Roman scanned and placed in with Times Roman (the outsource Co. couldn't spring for Times Ten as specced apparently)!)
William
Dedicated hardware (ebookman, Franklin reader) hasn't caught on that well.
I've read a fair number of texts on my Newton, but found a Palm Pilot too small.
I've read a lot more, and enjoy it more on my pen computers---started with an NCR-3125, moved up to a Fujitsu Point, just got a Stylistic.
Apparently the Zinio Reader for Tablet PC is well done, haven't tried it yet.
William
Take a look here:
http://ebible.org/
William
I've done this.
Take a look at my version of Okakura Kakuzo's _The Book of Tea_ in my portfolio, http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio.html
William
As William Morris once said,
``Have nothing in your homes which you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.''
Best of all of course, are those things which are both.
William