kavaler@ucbcad.UUCP (12/15/83)
#N:ucbcad:10900001:000:568 ucbcad!kavaler Dec 14 17:53:00 1983 I saw on T.V. the other day a device called the "Koala Pad." It is a pad that one can either hold or place on a table. The pad can sense position and send the information to some host machine. It was being marketted for games (for ATARI, IBM, and similar systems I think). It was sort the opposite of a mouse (all the smarts are in the pad, none in the hand). I was wondering if anyone has every used one of these. Also, this "pad" seems to be a low resolution device and I was wondering if a higher resolution device exists. Robert Kavaler (kavaler@berkeley)
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (12/18/83)
One problem with the Koala Pad is that when you take your finger or the
pointer off the pad, the reading goes back to (0,0). This mucks up
menu-oriented programs and things. Apparently it was put in to suit
the particular application it was first designed for.
The other thing is that I found it hard to move with just the finger -
you had to press to hard to make it useful. I then tried the end of a
pen and scratched the pad surface. I believe there is a specially-designed
pointer you can get with it.
Basically it's just a small (6x6 inches, maybe?) graphics tablet with
no built-in light pen.
Dave Sherman
Toronto
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{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davechuqui@cae780.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (12/19/83)
The biggest problem with textpads (koala's et all.. We have used them on our apollo's) is their lack of resolution. They finger is just too big to be a reasonable pointing device, especially with such a small area to point in. We are currently switching over to bitpads because the idiotic things are so frustrating after a while...
avr@CS-Arthur (Andrew V Royappa) (12/30/83)
'Creative Computing' reviewed Koala Pads sometime back.
Off the top of my head I would say it's in one of the three latest
issues. Seems to be a pretty neat device - as to it being Lo-res,
well, there were some pictures in the article which CC claimed to
have generated with the Pad which weren't too bad, so you may like
to look up the article. Sorry to be so vague . .
Andrew
avr@purdue (ARPA)
{ucbvax,decvax,harpo}!pur-ee!purdue!avr (UUCP)preece@uicsl.UUCP (01/06/84)
#R:ucbcad:10900001:uicsl:13300001:000:162 uicsl!preece Jan 5 09:05:00 1984 The Koala pad is supposed to 256 x 256 resolution in a 4" x 4" working space. That's not so bad. You can use it either with your finger or with a plastic stylus.