4 ms·

Pressure sensitive pens is old well established technology. I used it on my old Palm Pilot. Don’t pass that off as a Microsoft innovation. And Microsoft was int

Pressure sensitive pens is old well established technology. I used it on my old Palm Pilot. Don’t pass that off as a Microsoft innovation. And Microsoft was into that long before there was an iPad with their failed tablet/laptop hybrids, which I actually thought was beginnings of a neat idea.

reissbaker 6y ago
Palm Pilots didn't have pressure-sensitive pens — at least, not as "pressure-sensitive pens" are commonly defined in modern technological terms. Technically they had "pressure-sensitive screens" in that pressure activated the screen, but you only got one bit of actual pressure information: whether the coordinate was pressed or not. Pressure-sensitive pens used by the Surface and iPad let you vary stroke weight and width by varying the pressure you apply from the pen to the screen, just like applying varying pressure with a real pen or pencil on paper will vary the weight and width of the line you draw. The digital pen pressure is represented as many bits of information — IIRC the original Surface Pen had 1024 bits of pressure sensitivity. Old Palm Pilot screens could be activated by anything capable of applying pressure: even a toothpick would do. A toothpick would just scratch a Surface or an iPad: there's significant technology in the pen itself, and the pen communicates wirelessly with the computer or tablet to transmit pressure data. That's why the Apple Pencil has a separate battery you need to keep charged, for example, as does the Surface Pen. Prior to the Surface, AFAIK the only option for digital artists who wanted pencil-like input was to use external Wacom "tablets" (although those weren't tablets in the modern sense — they were input devices that you'd plug into your computer) or bad knockoffs of Wacom tablets, that had pressure-sensitive pens that worked with their special writing surfaces — and the writing surfaces often even lacked a screen, so you needed to look away from the pen to look at your monitor to see what you were doing (and often with pretty poor pen/screen latency). Eventually Wacom released a monitor that had the writing surface built in, but it was enormous in size, even more enormous in price, and not actually a very good screen — it was just better than looking away from the pen (and it still didn't include the computer). The whole thing was cumbersome. And it's true that Microsoft didn't invent pressure sensitive pens — Wacom did — but MS did pioneer integrating pressure-sensitive pen systems as part of the computer as opposed to requiring optional add-on hardware like the original Wacoms. Similarly, Apple didn't invent WiFi, or USB, or any of the things the poster I was responding to claimed; they just adopted them and made Apple devices support the technology by default — the claim was "no one adopts a new technology in the PC world until Apple gives it social proof." So: some counterpoints. (Also, "failed tablet/laptop hybrids"? Pretty sure the Surface hardware hasn't failed — most recent quarterly revenue for the Surface division was about $2 billion. And it spawned a legion of tablet/laptop hybrids in the Windows ecosystem — pretty much every laptop maker for Windows offers a touchscreen laptop, and they're fairly popular. Even Chromebooks often have touchscreens. Apple is way behind on this one.)

reissbaker 6y ago

Palm Pilots didn't have pressure-sensitive pens — at least, not as "pressure-sensitive pens" are commonly defined in modern technological terms. Technically they had "pressure-sensitive screens" in that pressure activated the screen, but you only got one bit of actual pressure information: whether the coordinate was pressed or not. Pressure-sensitive pens used by the Surface and iPad let you vary stroke weight and width by varying the pressure you apply from the pen to the screen, just like applying varying pressure with a real pen or pencil on paper will vary the weight and width of the line you draw. The digital pen pressure is represented as many bits of information — IIRC the original Surface Pen had 1024 bits of pressure sensitivity. Old Palm Pilot screens could be activated by anything capable of applying pressure: even a toothpick would do. A toothpick would just scratch a Surface or an iPad: there's significant technology in the pen itself, and the pen communicates wirelessly with the computer or tablet to transmit pressure data. That's why the Apple Pencil has a separate battery you need to keep charged, for example, as does the Surface Pen. Prior to the Surface, AFAIK the only option for digital artists who wanted pencil-like input was to use external Wacom "tablets" (although those weren't tablets in the modern sense — they were input devices that you'd plug into your computer) or bad knockoffs of Wacom tablets, that had pressure-sensitive pens that worked with their special writing surfaces — and the writing surfaces often even lacked a screen, so you needed to look away from the pen to look at your monitor to see what you were doing (and often with pretty poor pen/screen latency). Eventually Wacom released a monitor that had the writing surface built in, but it was enormous in size, even more enormous in price, and not actually a very good screen — it was just better than looking away from the pen (and it still didn't include the computer). The whole thing was cumbersome. And it's true that Microsoft didn't invent pressure sensitive pens — Wacom did — but MS did pioneer integrating pressure-sensitive pen systems as part of the computer as opposed to requiring optional add-on hardware like the original Wacoms. Similarly, Apple didn't invent WiFi, or USB, or any of the things the poster I was responding to claimed; they just adopted them and made Apple devices support the technology by default — the claim was "no one adopts a new technology in the PC world until Apple gives it social proof." So: some counterpoints. (Also, "failed tablet/laptop hybrids"? Pretty sure the Surface hardware hasn't failed — most recent quarterly revenue for the Surface division was about $2 billion. And it spawned a legion of tablet/laptop hybrids in the Windows ecosystem — pretty much every laptop maker for Windows offers a touchscreen laptop, and they're fairly popular. Even Chromebooks often have touchscreens. Apple is way behind on this one.)