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> Technologies such as the T9 phone keyboard or the Palm Pilot handwriting alphabet briefly achieved some adoption. Kind of tangential to the article, but Graf
by freedomben 2y ago
> Technologies such as the T9 phone keyboard or the Palm Pilot handwriting alphabet briefly achieved some adoption.
Kind of tangential to the article, but Graffiti[1] (the Palm Pilot handwriting alphabet) was really quite amazing. It was remarkably simple, and once you learned it, you could write stuff fast. I literally wrote several long papers on my Palm Pilot, while out and about. I'm honestly shocked that it didn't stick around and become widespread. I thought for sure it was the future and the future was bright! What happened to that? Did it just die a typical proprietary death along with the device? Has anybody implemented it for something else, like Linux?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29
- terinjokes 2y agoACCESS (fka PalmSource) had the rights to Graffiti and released an Android keyboard a long time ago. I remember finding the motions were not as good without a stylus, and stopped using it. I see it's no longer available. If anyone has the floppies for the Tandy Z-PDA, Casio Z-7000, or AST GRiDPad version of Graffiti from 1994, do get in touch. I'd love to get them archived.
- devilbunny 2y agoGraffiti was very, very good, and unlike Newton used a lot of simplified gestures for letters rather than trying to transcribe handwriting, but the acme was Swype, which was bought and killed. There is nothing on its level to this day.