Penulator

The Penulator adverts describe it as “the low-cost graphics pen” and suggest that it is an alternative to buying a graphics tablet. The product consists of a PC “Mouse Pen”, from a company called Logic 3, along with a disc containing driver software allowing it to be used with a RiscPC or A7000.

The hardware

The hardware side of the package is a pen-like device on a cable which plugs directly into the serial port (which means that it cannot be used while other serial devices, such as modems, are active). The pen is about the same length as a biro, although it is more bulky, and has a miniature mouse wheel at the broadened end of the stylus. There are two buttons which sit on the top, where the index finger rests. Installation is as simple as plugging it in at the serial port, and switching the computer on.

The software

In order to make use of the Penulator pen, some additional software needs to be loaded on the computer. iSV recommend copying the !PenUlator application to the hard disc and running it from there, possibly even installing it in the boot sequence. Either way, the software only costs 25Kb of disc space and takes up only 32Kb of physical memory when in use, so it is nice and compact. Once it has been installed and run, the Penulator icon appears to the righthand side of the iconbar, and allows the configuration of various features, including whether the Acorn mouse or the Penulator pen should be the default input device. Most of the options are for enabling or disabling a number of functions, which have been available for some time in the form of public domain programs, such as movement of the pointer with the cursor keys, and wrap-around of the pointer over the screen edges. These are particularly nice since they continue to work if you abandon the pen in favour of the mouse.

A single click with on the Penulator icon swaps operation of the pointer over to the pen, and the same applies when switching back from pen to mouse. This makes changing the mode of operation very easy although, as the manual advises, you have to be careful not to change to the pen when it isn’t plugged in, or you will prevent yourself from moving the pointer (unless you have cursor key operation of the pointer enabled).

One thing which hasn’t yet been mentioned is that the PC driver software is also provided, so the pen can also be used with a PC card, or a standard PC.

Penulator in use

If you are used to using a mouse, it may take a little while to get used to using the pen as your main way of moving and operating the pointer. I found that the key isn’t to treat it exactly like a pen. Since you expect to write with a pen, you automatically apply a certain amount of pressure to the surface on which you are moving it, but the Penulator pen doesn’t respond very well if you take this approach. The manual also suggests using the reverse, foam, side of a mouse mat as the pen doesn’t respond very well to the standard mouse mat surface (note to the wise: the underside of Paul’s favourite 3M mouse mat works brilliantly!)

The observant will have realised that I mentioned that the pen only has two buttons, and an Acorn mouse uses three. The buttons are arranged so that the tip of the index finger rests on the front one (select) and, by ‘rocking’ the finger back slightly, the back button (adjust) can be depressed.

Pressing both buttons simultaneously produces the same effect as pressing (menu). This is particularly tricky to get to grips with as it means that, to make a menu selection, you need to press both, then release the back one, then the front one, whilst hovering over your choice.

Pointing and drawing

Although the pen works reasonably well as a general-purpose pointing device, and most desktop operations are pretty easy to achieve, it probably comes into its own when used with a graphics application. The Penulator manual gives examples of its use with Draw – a “freehand drawing” can be set by holding down and a point will be placed whenever the pen changes direction on the page. The sensitivity can be configured for this feature. In addition, there is a “rubber band” mode which allows for quite accurate drawing when used with the cursor keys.

I very much liked the use of Penulator with vector art packages; it seemed very natural. Using Penulator with bitmap programs wasn’t quite as seamless, since the freehand drawing mode was inappropriate, and it wasn’t very easy to paint whilst holding the front button down all the time. Nevertheless, both Paint and Studio24Pro were a different experience when using a pen instead of a mouse.

Quibbles

Unusually for a product from iSV, I actually came across a number of quibbles with Penulator, although most of them were minor. For example, the manual fails to mention that the use of Shift with Insert, Home and Page Up to emulate mouse clicks from the keyboard only works with the righthand shift key. Without accidentally discovering this for myself, I would never have realised that it worked at all!

The biggest problem I encountered was with getting the driver software to work! When I initially installed !PenUlator in the Tasks directory of my Boot application, I found that I was getting repeated internal errors followed by a complete hang every time I rebooted, which required a shift-boot and the removal of the application.

Reference to the disc-based manual quickly brought part of a solution – Penulator doesn’t like the IClear module which I loaded as part of my Boot sequence, although the manual suggested that it could be made to work as long as IClear was loaded after !PenUlator. This proved not to be the case, and in fact IClear wasn’t the end of my troubles. I have only been able to narrow the clash down to one or all of 12 different modules and patches, but obviously not everyone will have a boot sequence as bloated as mine!

Conclusion

Although the marketing blurb heralds Penulator as a replacement for a graphics tablet, I think it is fairer to say that it can be used to get some of the ‘feel’ of using a graphics tablet, at a much lower cost. Most graphics tablets these days are pressure-sensitive and this simply isn’t the case with Penulator.

My advice to anyone thinking of getting Penulator is to be prepared for a little perseverance in getting used to using a pen instead of a mouse. On the whole though, for the price of the package, and the extra utilities that the software provides, I think iSV have done it again − a nice product which does exactly what it says in the ad!

Penulator costs £35 +p&p. Further details from iSV Products on 01344-455769 or at: http://members.aol.comt/isvproduct/.

The features offered by the Penulator driver are very useful since they work with both the pen and the standard mouse

This little doodle (complete with stylised initials!) was produced in Artworks using Penulator’s freehand drawing mode