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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.pen
- Path: sparky!uunet!brunix!m2lll!jhc
- From: jhc@m2lll.uucp (James H. Coombs)
- Subject: Re: Well, nice it was folks...
- Message-ID: <1992Aug19.215251.16377@cs.brown.edu>
- Sender: news@cs.brown.edu
- Reply-To: jhc@m2lll.UUCP (James H. Coombs)
- Organization: IRIS - Brown University
- References: <1992Aug19.195039.13803@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE>
- Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 21:52:51 GMT
- Lines: 50
-
- In article <1992Aug19.195039.13803@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE> thomasp@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Patrick Thomas) writes:
-
- >PenTops are not going to find *any* customers if they don't provide
- >an alternative pointing mechanism besides the pen. Look for NCR's
- >FingerMouse as an excellent complementary device.
-
- Justification? What is the problem with the pen as a pointing device?
- Pointing with a pen is much more direct than pointing with a mouse.
-
- And isn't the pen actually more than a pointing device? With a pen,
- you can point and manipulate in a single gesture. In PenPoint, for
- example, Xing over a document points at the document and specifies
- deletion at the same time.
-
- >PDAs are worthless if
-
- I asked about "PDA" before, and the responses were frivolous. Can you
- expand this? Is it pen-desk accessory?
-
- > * they don't provide cursive handwriting recognition
-
- I agree that pen computing is worth less without cursive, but I can't
- agree that it is worthless. We all learned how to print in part
- because printing is more readily recognized by people, and we
- frequently have to print in order to ensure that others will be able to
- read our writing.
-
- So, where you demand cursive, then pen computers may not be useful
- except as storage devices. Where you demand or prefer printing, they
- will be very useful without cursive recognition.
-
- > * they don't slip < 500$, < 1 pound
-
- How much do they cost now? Are you saying they must cost less than
- $500? I thought at first that you meant "by $500".
-
- > * they don't hook up to available wireless communication means
-
- Why is this essential?
-
- >All of this is not going to happen until 1994.
-
- Possibly, but I don't have much hope for cursive recognition ever. I
- frequently can't recognize my own handwriting---at least when I have
- written something hurriedly. And many of us have difficulty with
- other's handwriting until we have been trained through experience with
- that person. Of course, a computer that could recognize my handwriting
- when I can't would be a valuable machine indeed.
-
- --Jim
-