barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (03/01/91)
Just to continue beating a partially dead horse (which happens to be catching on fire, though): The cover story on the latest "PC Magazine" (or is it "PC Journal"?) is about GO Corps. pen-based (i.e. handwritten input) operating system, and they also have a lengthy note MicroSoft's attempt, "PenWindows" (which will allow a handwritten interface to Windows 3.0, in which the pen plays the dual role of the mouse and the cursor). And the Feb 25 InfoWorld has a page 3 blurb on PenWindows as well. There is much interest in putting GO's OS on notebook platforms, but the power of MicroSoft is also fostering an enormous interest in PenWindows. The upshot is; A large group of hardware makers (Toshiba, Sharp, NEC, Grid, Canon, etc) and software developers are going to License PenWindows, and MicroSoft claims the first PenWindow's based apps and platforms will be shipping in < 1.5 years (1992). Developer kits will be available shortly (and already are for GO's PenPoint OS.) I think the pen-based paradigm is really going to be taking off over the next couple years, and the massive interest (as well as push from MicroSoft) would seem to support this. I hope NeXT has some sort of plans in this direction. (Could we stand MicroSoft having a superior user interface to NeXT! :-) I also heard a rumor that a few top NeXT people (who followed Steve from Apple) have gone on to work at GO---another sign that this is the most exciting direction in personal computing now. Also, I'd just like to plug once more the idea of a pen based tablet as a "mobile peripheral" for your main computer, rather than just a pen-based laptop that is big, clunky and _expensive_. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet)
waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu (03/02/91)
In article <1155@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > Just to continue beating a partially dead horse (which happens > to be catching on fire, though): Yeah, I thought I saw that horse twitch, too;^) [...material deleted...] > > I think the pen-based paradigm is really going to be taking off over > the next couple years, and the massive interest (as well as push from > MicroSoft) would seem to support this. I hope NeXT has some sort > of plans in this direction. (Could we stand MicroSoft having > a superior user interface to NeXT! :-) One of the blurbs in the last BYTE about this referred to the pen-based paradigm as "those who prefer the pencil or stylus to the keyboard..." (quote is from memory and my memory is terrible). I believe this interpretation is totally wrong. While there may be some people for whom this is true, I doubt it is true for the great majority. That is, if you CAN type, you probably prefer to type when typing is appropriate. But typing is not always appropriate. I prefer keyboard and mouse in most instances but, for command mode, prefer just keyboard (and would sometimes prefer voice if I could have it). Sometimes I want a textual response; sometimes a graphics response; and sometimes a voice response. As I have stated before, I would like to be able to use a pen or stylus in precisely those situation where I use them now: in meetings where they are unobtrusive. I have yet to find a keyboard quiet enough to use in a large meeting room; and in a face-to-face meeting with someone, it is obtrusive (not to mention rude) to sit looking at a CRT screen instead of at the person(s) with whom you are meeting. The advantage of a pen-based system vs. a notepad is that I don't have to transcribe my notes later on. Also, in a meeting, I may be able to initiate a search for cross-references which may be useful in a discussion ("let's see if I can find this in my notes somewhere..."). With a GO-based system, multi-tasking would let me initiate the search and proceed with note-taking while the search was being conducted. With a PenWindows system, perhaps...but I believe it would be more of a kludge in the sense that it would have to be done as a separate application rather than as a thread or sub-process spun off from the note-taking. The BYTE blurb reported that a number of applications would be modified so that pen-based input could be an alternative to keyboard/mouse in PenWindows. For many applications, that would probably be of marginal benefit (e.g., CAD or desktop publishing). A PenWindows interface would permit you to use these applications if all you had available was a pen-based system at the time, but you would prefer to use keyboard and mouse. This would be consistent with the Windows approach which attempts to let you use the GUI even if you don't have a mouse. With PenWindows, you could function when you had neither keyboard nor mouse. But while I don't want to discount the value of this, I do want to note that it can be misleading. In addition to their value as a alternative to keyboard/mouse, pen-based systems have a niche in which they are uniquely appropriate. Unless this is understood clearly (or unless I am wrong, of course), it is likely that developers will miss the mark and the pen-based paradigm will fail to catch on. Note that this is true of voice recognition as well. Voice recognition opens new possibilities but is not always preferable to keyboard/mouse/pen. Another issue here is level of effort. Microsoft Windows is quite difficult to develop for without good toolkits. I don't know about GO. Whoever has the toolkits and the better object-oriented model will provide the most attractive development environment. Of course, Microsoft has everything else going for it and this will usually assure market dominance even if PenPoint's GO turns out to have technical superiority. (Note: I said IF. I don't know which of the two has technical superiority and I am not a Microsoft basher. I WOULD like to see competition in this area, however, and am rooting for PenPoint and Microsoft both.) > Also, I'd just like to plug once more the idea of a pen based > tablet as a "mobile peripheral" for your main computer, rather than > just a pen-based laptop that is big, clunky and _expensive_. Which addresses another of the major issues here which is integration. Which is the whole point as to why I'd like to see NeXT involved in some way which assures that my pen-based system plays well with my desktop system...both when attached and when detached. c.f.waltrip Internet: <waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu> Opinions expressed are my own.