Fujitsu Pen Tablets

Joshua Channing Gargus schwa at cc.gatech.edu
Wed May 23 20:46:27 UTC 2001


On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 12:20:10PM -0400, Noel J. Bergman wrote:
> All of these devices appear to have plenty of screen real estate, processing
> power, and memory.  But Squeak's mouse-button-centric UI is an issue for
> usability. Even though Squeak works fine with a 1-button mouse, it uses a
> keyboard to map back to a 3-button mouse [red == button-1, yellow ==
> button-2/option+click, blue === button-3/cmd+click].
> 
> Based upon my experiences to-date with the iPAQ, I'd say that Squeak UI
> needs more work on stylus-centric devices before it is entirely usable on a
> device that lacks a multi-button mouse and/or a keyboard with which to
> simulate the effect.  Right now there are too many things that require a
> 3-button mouse and/or keyboard to manipulate the UI.  Images with Genie just
> don't seem to be mature enough, yet.  If someone is aware of some useful
> change sets, please let me know.
> 
> So far, I haven't seen a stylus-centric UI that out does the Newton for
> usability.

I would have to concur.  Squeak works great using a Wacom tablet, but the
stylus has two extra buttons.

I think it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.  Until tablet devices with
adequate screen real-estate are affordable and widely available, the Squeak
hackers who would like to build a pen UI upon the excellent Genie framework 
won't have access to the hardware to do so.

Joshua

> 
> 	--- Noel
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jerry Bell [mailto:jdbell at fareselaw.com]
> 
> I don't have any info on those, but I played with a tablet from these guys a
> couple of years ago at Comdex:
> 
> http://www.qbenet.com/indexflash.htm
> 
> They've got a nifty little webcam built in too.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bert Freudenberg [mailto:bert at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de]
> >
> > Does anybody have experience with Squeak on one of Fujitsu's pen-based
> > computers?  They look quite interesting ...
> >
> >
> http://www.fujitsu-pc.com/www/products_overview.shtml?products/pentablets/ov
> erview





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