Notes on the (relatively unknown) History of Pen-based Computing
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- Source: Annotated Bibliography in Touch/Pen Computing and Handwriting Recognition by Jean Renard Ward".
This is a short outline of a presentation on the history of
"pen computing" I gave for the Pen Computing group of the
Boston Computer Society, March 11, 1992. Unfortunately, I did not keep the full set of slides, which had pictures of the products and systems.
However, Dan Bricklin (CTO at Slate Corporation at the time) has posted a video of the same presentation on youtube, which does show all the pictures and slides:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xnqKdWMa_8.
Topic threads for tonight ...
- Pen Computing is not new: "A lot of it has happened before"
(... with selected examples, mostly from commercial development)
- Some specific shortcomings of the current state of the Pen-Computing art
(... they are not what you might think)
- What this implies ... or, "What should we do?"
Why this "historical view" might be of interest to this audience:
- Historical developments are relatively unknown, and quite voluminous.
- Present a broad range of case-study examples.
- Early examples were done by workers motivated by other interests, with a different perspective ...
- man-machine-interfaces (sic),
- human functionality and usability,
- cognitive concerns
- a study problem for pattern recognition
... not in modern "GUI" development.
- Current problems:
- There are neglected / overlooked issues,
falling under the rubric of human factors,
that affect and may threaten the usability
and viability of pen-based systems.
Especially: "Electronic Ink" (hardware and software)
- Topics not addressed tonight:
- No product demonstrations ...
- No applications demonstrations ...
- Other presentations coming up:
- Slate is presenting to BCS general meeting, May 21.
- Society for Information Display (S.I.D.) is meeting in Boston in May.
Videotape demo of certain applications.
Historical overview:
- There is a repeated theme in commercial developments, namely the
"Lief Ericsson in 1992" scenario ---
- "I/we discovered/invented pen computing, pen computers, pen-based systems."
"The Archeology of Pen-based computing"
- 1914 Hyman Eli Goldberg, U.S. Patent 1,117,184,
"Controller".
... on-line (not OCR) recognition of hand-written
numerals to control a machine in real-time.
- 1938 George Hansel, U.S. Patent 2,143,875,
machine recognition of handwriting.
- G.G. Neil Wright, "The Writing of Arabic Numerals"
"The Ancient History of Pen-based computing"
- 1956 RAND tablet
... invention of the digitizing tablet, for
a handwriting recognition project.
(Actualy the Stylator came first!)
- 1957 T.L. Dimond, "Reading Handwritten Characters", EJCC
Claimed 97% recognition rate, and a better input device
for humans than a keyboard
- 1962 Masterson and Hirsch, IRE Transactions on Human
Factors and Electronics
99.79% correct recognition.
- 1962 J.C.R. Licklider, "On-line Man-computer Communication", SJCC
- 1961/3 Sitari, Harmon, Frishkopf, et al
cursive script recognition at Bell Labs
- 1966 Groner et al, "GRAIL System", RAND Corporation
Text/character recognition, gesture commands,
sketch recognition
"The Early Commercial History of Pen-based computing"
- 1973 Applicon Corporation / Ledeen recognizer
Gesture-based command input, with
hot-points, in a widely-praised
GUI for a commercial CAD system
- 1974 SRI / Xebec Systems Incorporated
Text input to computer with a pen
- 1976 S-I Hanaki, NEC handwriting kana/romanji
billing machine product
- 1981 Several commercial vendors, small units, some portable
MicroPad ImageData Telepad
WriteAway
many Japanese
(Application areas: data-capture, data-entry)
"The Modern History of Pen-based computing"
-
1983 PC-based or -oriented commercial products
PenPad CIC Handwriter NestorWriter
Included "front-end" interfaces to word-processing
systems, CAD/Paint systems, spread-sheet input
(Note: these companies are still around)
Special note: even perfect recognition does not solve the problem!
Gould et al, "Composing Letters with a Simulated
Listening Typewriter", CACM April 1983.
-
1985 "Experimental" systems
AEG (Germany) Word-processing
IBM (Tappert)
-
1986 Linus Technologies
Application areas: walking data capture (nurses),
financing from Baxter Medical
-
1986/7 MAC-based products:
Personal Writer / Anatex
"Current Events of Pen-based computing"
-
1989 GridPAD
Application area: remote data capture (surveys,
inventory, shipping/receiving)
-
1990/91/92 Too many to mention ...
"Pen OS" - PenPoint, Windows for Pens
"Pocket" - Poqet
, Sharpe Wizard
"Tablets" - Wang/Momenta/Grid/Eden Group/SuperScript/ScriptWriter/ ...
Application areas:
- Highly-mobile data capture
- Note taking / capture
- Document capture and display
- "Imaging systems"
NOTE: All of these application areas involve "electronic ink", data
that is fundamentally in written form (sketches
by insurance adjusters, for example), that
does not need to be recognized as text.
-
There will be a short video of some representative applications and software
(So there is some commercial content after all - Dang!)
Specific shortcomings of the current art:
- Electronic ink: State of the Art -- Special
considerations:
-
Existing, alternative technology for data
capture, note capture, and documents
is paper and pen, or paper and pencil,
... not any current computer technology.
-
Paper-based systems are highly evolved
--> equivalent to well designed.
-
"Ink" APIs and functions are not highly evolved:
- editing
- scaling
- storage
- embedding
-
Current hardware designs for electronic
ink are NOT adequate, due partly
to ignorance of physical effects of
human use on part of designers.
- Displays (LCD): State of the Art
-
Low contrast
-
No backlight
-
LCD parallax / shadowing
-
Glare
-
Coarse resolution
-
Slow ("fuzzy motion"), especially when cold
- Greyscale mapping
- Digitizers: State of the Art
- Bad electronic ink vs. real ink
Comparison: Teletype keyboard vs.
typewriter keyboard action
- Tablet electronic effects: (especially at low power!)
Tablets produce very distorted images ...
"it's not my signature"
"it doesn't go where I point/draw"
- Spiking
- Fixed line distortions
- Velocity errors
- Angle of stylus
- Poor tracking with height
- Tablet mechanical effects:
- Slickness
- Tip force
- Surface hardness
- Stylus design:
- corded / handed
- surface texture
- weight and handling
-
There will be a short video showing digitizers
Summary:
So ... What does this history mean ... to us?
-
What applications have been shown to be inappropriate?
-
Patentability?
-
Why should we think there is a market?
-
There is a long historical perspective
Examples for human-factors, application,
market, U/I, and human-machine design study
-
Old (obvious?) applications were not successful.
-
New applications are highly mobile, in unfamiliar
areas, and characterized by functionality
such as electronic ink or mobile data access, not character
recognition
-
Note takers
-
Daytimer (R) Pen Scheduler
-
PenBook (R)
-
Hardware for electronic ink requires a
design much more to ergonomic and human
factors goals than has been the case.
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Comments:
jrward@alum.mit.edu
