Pen computing

Pen accretion refers to a computer user-interface application a pen (or stylus) and tablet, rather than accessories such as a keyboard, joysticks or a mouse.

Pen accretion is additionally acclimated to accredit to the acceptance of adaptable accessories such as wireless book claimed computers, PDAs and GPS receivers. The appellation has been acclimated to accredit to the acceptance of any artefact acceptance for adaptable communication. An adumbration of such a accessory is a stylus, about acclimated to columnist aloft a cartoon book or touchscreen, as against to application a added acceptable interface such as a keyboard, keypad, abrasion or touchpad.

Historically, pen accretion (defined as a computer arrangement employing a user-interface application a pointing accessory additional autography acceptance as the primary agency for alternate user input) predates the use of a abrasion and graphical affectation by at atomic two decades, starting with the Stylator 1 and RAND tablet2 systems of the 1950s and aboriginal 1960s.

Pointing/Locator input

The book and stylus are acclimated as pointing devices, such as to alter a mouse. Note that a abrasion is a about pointing device—one uses the abrasion to "push the cursor around" on a screen. However, a book is an complete pointing device—one charge put the stylus is absolutely area the cursor goes.

There are a cardinal of animal factors considerations back absolutely substituting a stylus and book for a mouse. For example, it is abundant harder to ambition or tap the aforementioned exact position alert with a stylus, so "double-tap" operations with a stylus are harder to accomplish if the arrangement is assured "double-click" ascribe from a mouse.

Note that a feel can be acclimated as the stylus on a touch-sensitive book surface, such as with a touchscreen.

Gesture recognition

This is the address of acquainted assertive appropriate shapes not as autography input, but as an indicator of a appropriate command.

For example, a "pig-tail" appearance (used generally as a proofreader's mark) would announce a "delete" operation. Depending on the implementation, what is deleted ability be the article or argument area the mark was made, or the stylus can be acclimated as a pointing accessory to baddest what it is that should be deleted. With Apple's Newton OS, argument could be deleted by abrading in a vertical zig-zag arrangement over the argument which the user adapted to remove.

Recent systems accept acclimated digitizers which can admit added than one "stylus" (usually a finger) at a time, and accomplish use of Multi-touch gestures.

The PenPoint OS was a appropriate operating arrangement which congenital action acceptance and autography ascribe at all levels of the operating system. Prior systems which active action acceptance alone did so aural appropriate applications, such as CAD/CAM applications 45 or argument processing

History

Pen accretion has actual abysmal actual roots. The abyss of these roots can be absolutely hasty to bodies who are alone accustomed with accepted bartering products. For example, the aboriginal apparent for an cyberbanking book acclimated for autography was accepted in 1888.7 What is apparently the aboriginal apparent for a arrangement that accustomed handwritten characters by allegory the autography motion was accepted in 1915.8 The aboriginal publicly-demonstrated arrangement appliance a book and autography argument acceptance instead of a keyboard for alive with a avant-garde agenda computer dates to 1956.9

In accession to abounding bookish and analysis systems, there were several companies with bartering articles in the 1980s: Pencept, Communications Intelligence Corporation, and Linus were amid the best accepted of a awash field. Later, GO Corp. brought out the PenPoint OS operating arrangement for a book PC product: one of the patents from GO association was the accountable of contempo contravention accusation apropos the Book PC operating system.10

The afterward timeline account gives some of the highlights of this history:

Before 1950

1888: U.S. Apparent accepted to Elisha Gray on electrical stylus accessory for capturing handwriting.117

1915: U.S. Apparent on autography acceptance user interface with a stylus.128

1942: U.S. Apparent on touchscreen for autography input.1314

1945: Vannevar Bush proposes the Memex, a abstracts archiving accessory including autography input, in an article As We May Think.15

1950s

Tom Dimond demonstrates the Styalator cyberbanking book with pen for computer ascribe and autography recognition