Pen input devices

The advent of the tablet PC and its version of Windows raised the profile of pen and ink as an input method and way of interacting with a computer. Overall, though, the use of ink hasn't really caught on, despite the fact that applications such as Microsoft Journal are standard in both Windows Vista and Windows 7. There are even basic pen input features on well known programs such as Microsoft Messenger.

However, much of the work that went into creating handwriting recognition programs was very successful and handwriting recognition is a very usable tool if you really don't like typing or if you need to mix drawing and annotation.

A number of manufacturers have realised that there is a need to provide add-on pens for machines that don't have touch screens or other similar input devices. The basic idea is that a sensor detects and records the position of the pen - either offline or while connected to the PC.

The offline mode of operation is particularly interesting because this makes the pen device usable in its own right as a data capture device without the need to involve a PC. What this means is that you can clip a sensor to the top of a sheet of paper and draw and write as much as you like while the data is stored in the receiver for later transfer and editing using a PC.

The PC can also make use of one of the standard handwriting recognition applications which are usually included with the pen or one of the Tablet PC applications to convert the input to editable text.

In this lab we look at two such pen input devices - the Dane-elec Zpen which also offers 1GByte of storage and the Apcom E-pens Mobile Notes which can be used as a standalone pen or as an attached mouse.