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“Handwriting recognition was a key part of the plan.” I was pretty young during this era of computing…but it felt that handwriting input was going to be The Th

“Handwriting recognition was a key part of the plan.” I was pretty young during this era of computing…but it felt that handwriting input was going to be The Thing in terms of next-generation computer interaction. Mind you, all I had access to was MacWorld and whatever PC mags were at the bookstore, but handwriting was seemingly going to be the text input method of the future. I swear you could even buy what amounted to a teeeeny little Wacom tablet to plug into your computer for handwriting recognition. All of which seems funny to me by 2022 standards. Computers were supposed to adapt to our “natural” input method of handwriting…but instead everything is a keyboard, be it a soft or hard keyboard, and then voice recognition for short on-the-go messages or for individuals with accessibility constraints. I mean, I literally cannot write any more. If you put me back in 4th grade, I’d flunk a cursive test so hard they’d hold me back a year.

adastra22 4y ago
They don’t teach cursive anymore.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  It took about an hour of practice to learn Graffiti, the PalmOS modified handwriting system. Humans are a lot better at adapting to computers than the other way around. I was taught cursive in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade... and it hurts my hand, and looks terrible, so I don't do that. My usual writing is a modified drafter's font.
  - valley_guy_12 4y ago
    Some engineer (I forget if it was an Apple engineer or a Handspring engineer) once remarked that Graffiti was a much smarter way to do handwriting recognition than Newton, because: "If the Palm Pilot made a mistake, people blamed themselves for not writing Graffiti correctly. If Newton made a mistake, people blamed Apple."
    - hnfong 4y ago
      "autocorrect fails" :D
  - wmf 4y ago
    I was a Newton fanboy and Graffiti hater... and then I actually tried Graffiti and realized it's so much better. It's a powerful lesson about how technical superiority isn't everything.
  - zinckiwi 4y ago
    I used Palm Pilots in college and got very proficient with Graffiti, to the extent that it became a pseudo-shorthand for me when taking pen-and-paper notes in class. Of course, I also had a Newton MP2000 (later upgraded to 2100) that I used in labs to input data to the native spreadsheet program, imported the resulting graphs into the native word processor for the writeup, and stopped by on the way back to the dorm to print it out wirelessly, all before anyone else sat down at their computers. That felt like magic.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  They don’t teach cursive anymore. Depends on the school. Low-end public school? Probably not. But private schools, and my nephew's Catholic school do. I've never understood the internet's hate for cursive. Are people who don't learn cursive not able to read the first line of a California license plate, or locate a Walgreen's pharmacy?
  - troutwine 4y ago
    > I've never understood the internet's hate for cursive. Are people who don't learn cursive not able to read the first line of a California license plate, or locate a Walgreen's pharmacy? It's sort of an outdated mode of writing that survived due to inertia. Cursive is super, super useful when your writing tool can't withstand repeat impacts against the writing medium -- like a quill -- or if lifting will cause your writing tool to leak against the medium. Theoretically it's also faster to write than block characters, but the speed differences appear to be minimal for short-duration writing with the benefit of uniformity of block characters _outside_ of cultures that stress uniformity of cursive lettering. Worth pointing out that the examples you give here are not especially stylized letters and that Walgreens, outside of its red cursive letter logo, generally prefers a sans-serif block lettering. That said, I'm sure for someone not familiar with cursive lettering the 'r' and 's' look especially inscrutable, but most humans tolerate unreadable characters pretty well when scanning words we already know. The slow death of cursive is indicative of the change in medium: most people write to one another by computer, or on mechanically printed paper. It's a similar process by which we started adding vowels, spaces and punctuation: the constraints of the medium or its tools improved with time.
    - felipemnoa 4y ago
      >>Cursive is super, super useful when your writing tool can't withstand repeat impacts against the writing medium In my experience it is much more comfortable to write cursive. You do not have to lift the pen for every single letter. It is quite annoying to have to do that, quite honestly. My hand feels much more happier to be able to just follow a flow. I also do not understand the hate, it is much more comfortable. It is like hating touch typing. Sure, you can type with two fingers but not very efficiently. To each their own I guess.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  My kids all learned cursive in school. But maybe it varies by country and region of the country. I'm in the US, east coast. Public school in a mix of blue & white collar-- more blue collar though-- in a small city that's a suburb to a large city.
twoodfin 4y ago
Bill Gates (and thus contemporary Microsoft) was obsessed with “pen computing”, so your perception was completely accurate.

adastra22 4y ago

They don’t teach cursive anymore.

dsr_ 4y ago
It took about an hour of practice to learn Graffiti, the PalmOS modified handwriting system. Humans are a lot better at adapting to computers than the other way around. I was taught cursive in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade... and it hurts my hand, and looks terrible, so I don't do that. My usual writing is a modified drafter's font.
- valley_guy_12 4y ago
  Some engineer (I forget if it was an Apple engineer or a Handspring engineer) once remarked that Graffiti was a much smarter way to do handwriting recognition than Newton, because: "If the Palm Pilot made a mistake, people blamed themselves for not writing Graffiti correctly. If Newton made a mistake, people blamed Apple."
  - hnfong 4y ago
    "autocorrect fails" :D
- wmf 4y ago
  I was a Newton fanboy and Graffiti hater... and then I actually tried Graffiti and realized it's so much better. It's a powerful lesson about how technical superiority isn't everything.
- zinckiwi 4y ago
  I used Palm Pilots in college and got very proficient with Graffiti, to the extent that it became a pseudo-shorthand for me when taking pen-and-paper notes in class. Of course, I also had a Newton MP2000 (later upgraded to 2100) that I used in labs to input data to the native spreadsheet program, imported the resulting graphs into the native word processor for the writeup, and stopped by on the way back to the dorm to print it out wirelessly, all before anyone else sat down at their computers. That felt like magic.
reaperducer 4y ago
They don’t teach cursive anymore. Depends on the school. Low-end public school? Probably not. But private schools, and my nephew's Catholic school do. I've never understood the internet's hate for cursive. Are people who don't learn cursive not able to read the first line of a California license plate, or locate a Walgreen's pharmacy?
- troutwine 4y ago
  > I've never understood the internet's hate for cursive. Are people who don't learn cursive not able to read the first line of a California license plate, or locate a Walgreen's pharmacy? It's sort of an outdated mode of writing that survived due to inertia. Cursive is super, super useful when your writing tool can't withstand repeat impacts against the writing medium -- like a quill -- or if lifting will cause your writing tool to leak against the medium. Theoretically it's also faster to write than block characters, but the speed differences appear to be minimal for short-duration writing with the benefit of uniformity of block characters _outside_ of cultures that stress uniformity of cursive lettering. Worth pointing out that the examples you give here are not especially stylized letters and that Walgreens, outside of its red cursive letter logo, generally prefers a sans-serif block lettering. That said, I'm sure for someone not familiar with cursive lettering the 'r' and 's' look especially inscrutable, but most humans tolerate unreadable characters pretty well when scanning words we already know. The slow death of cursive is indicative of the change in medium: most people write to one another by computer, or on mechanically printed paper. It's a similar process by which we started adding vowels, spaces and punctuation: the constraints of the medium or its tools improved with time.
  - felipemnoa 4y ago
    >>Cursive is super, super useful when your writing tool can't withstand repeat impacts against the writing medium In my experience it is much more comfortable to write cursive. You do not have to lift the pen for every single letter. It is quite annoying to have to do that, quite honestly. My hand feels much more happier to be able to just follow a flow. I also do not understand the hate, it is much more comfortable. It is like hating touch typing. Sure, you can type with two fingers but not very efficiently. To each their own I guess.
ineedasername 4y ago
My kids all learned cursive in school. But maybe it varies by country and region of the country. I'm in the US, east coast. Public school in a mix of blue & white collar-- more blue collar though-- in a small city that's a suburb to a large city.

twoodfin 4y ago

Bill Gates (and thus contemporary Microsoft) was obsessed with “pen computing”, so your perception was completely accurate.