A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a multi-purpose mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS and Android, and thus saw a rapid decline in use after 2007.
A pointing device is a human interface device that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer. Graphical user interfaces (GUI) and CAD systems allow the user to control and provide data to the computer using physical gestures by moving a hand-held mouse or similar device across the surface of the physical desktop and activating switches on the mouse. Movements of the pointing device are echoed on the screen by movements of the pointer and other visual changes. Common gestures are point and click and drag and drop.
A graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images, animations and graphics, with a special pen-like stylus, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper.
Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or intelligent word recognition. Alternatively, the movements of the pen tip may be sensed "on line", for example by a pen-based computer screen surface, a generally easier task as there are more clues available. A handwriting recognition system handles formatting, performs correct segmentation into characters, and finds the most possible words.
Graffiti is an essentially single-stroke shorthand handwriting recognition system used in PDAs based on the Palm OS. Graffiti was originally written by Palm, Inc. as the recognition system for GEOS-based devices such as HP's OmniGo 100 and 120 or the Magic Cap-line and was available as an alternate recognition system for the Apple Newton MessagePad, when NewtonOS 1.0 could not recognize handwriting very well. Graffiti also runs on the Windows Mobile platform, where it is called "Block Recognizer", and on the Symbian UIQ platform as the default recognizer and was available for Casio's Zoomer PDA.
The PenPoint OS was one of the earliest operating systems written specifically for graphical tablets and personal digital assistants. It was a product of GO Corporation. PenPoint OS ran on AT&T Corporation's EO Personal Communicator and a number of Intel x86 powered tablet PCs including IBM's ThinkPad 700T series, NCR's 3125, 3130 and some of GRiD Systems' pen-based portables. It was never widely adopted.
Jeffrey Hawkins is an American businessman, neuroscientist and engineer. He co-founded Palm Computing — where he co-created the PalmPilot and Treo — and Handspring.
A touchscreen is a type of display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device and an output device. The touch panel is typically layered on the top of the electronic visual display of a device. Touchscreens are commonly found in smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other electronic devices.
GEOS is a computer operating environment, graphical user interface (GUI), and suite of application software. Originally released as PC/GEOS, it runs on DOS-based, IBM PC compatible computers. Versions for some handheld platforms were also released and licensed to some companies.
ShapeWriter was a keyboard text input method for tablet, handheld PCs, and mobile phones invented by Shumin Zhai and Per Ola Kristensson at IBM Almaden Research Center and the Department of Computer and Information Science at Linköping University.
The Grid Compass is a family of laptop computers introduced in 1982 by the Grid Systems Corporation. The design for the Compass was rendered by Bill Moggridge. Owing to its clamshell design—the first in a portable computer—some historians credit the original Compass as the first ever laptop.
A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers, have similar capabilities, but lack some input/output (I/O) abilities that others have. Modern tablets largely resemble modern smartphones, the only differences being that tablets are relatively larger than smartphones, with screens 7 inches (18 cm) or larger, measured diagonally, and may not support access to a cellular network. Unlike laptops, tablets usually run mobile operating systems, alongside smartphones.
In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface to recognize the presence of more than one point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CERN, MIT, University of Toronto, Carnegie Mellon University and Bell Labs in the 1970s. CERN started using multi-touch screens as early as 1976 for the controls of the Super Proton Synchrotron. Capacitive multi-touch displays were popularized by Apple's iPhone in 2007. Multi-touch may be used to implement additional functionality, such as pinch to zoom or to activate certain subroutines attached to predefined gestures using gesture recognition.
Pen computing refers to any computer user-interface using a pen or stylus and tablet, over input devices such as a keyboard or a mouse.
Grid Systems Corporation was an early portable computer manufacturer, based in the United States and oriented for the production of rugged and semi-rugged machines. Currently, the Grid computer brand still exists as Grid Defence Systems Ltd. in the United Kingdom.
In computing, a stylus is a small pen-shaped instrument whose tip position on a computer monitor can be detected. It is used to draw, or make selections by tapping. While devices with touchscreens such as newer computers, mobile devices, game consoles, and graphics tablets can usually be operated with a fingertip, a stylus provides more accurate and controllable input. The stylus has the same function as a mouse or touchpad as a pointing device; its use is commonly called pen computing.
The history of tablet computers and the associated special operating software is an example of pen computing technology, and thus the development of tablets has deep historical roots. The first patent for a system that recognized handwritten characters by analyzing the handwriting motion was granted in 1914. The first publicly demonstrated system using a tablet and handwriting recognition instead of a keyboard for working with a modern digital computer dates to 1956.
Microsoft Tablet PC is a term coined by Microsoft for tablet computers conforming to a set of specifications announced in 2001 by Microsoft, for a pen-enabled personal computer, conforming to hardware specifications devised by Microsoft and running a licensed copy of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system or a derivative thereof.
An active pen is an input device that includes electronic components and allows users to write directly onto the display of a computing device such as a smartphone, tablet computer or ultrabook. The active pen marketplace has long been dominated by N-trig and Wacom, but newer firms Atmel and Synaptics also offer active pen designs.
The Surface Book 2 is the second generation of the Surface Book, part of the Microsoft Surface line of personal computers. It is a 2-in-1 PC which can be used like a conventional laptop, or the screen can be detached and used separately as a tablet, with touch and stylus input. In addition to the 13.5-inch screen available in the original Surface Book introduced two years before, it is also available in a 15-inch screen model. It was released in November 2017, and replaced in Microsoft's product line by the Surface Book 3 in May 2020.
