Pen Computing

While doing a bit of digging in the annex next to my office after getting bored with wrestling with WPF for another day, I came across some old hardware abandoned by former postgrad inmates. Among the floppy disks, digitisers, and VHS tapes was this:

This is a Toshiba T200/80 pen computer from 1994—one of the earliest commercial examples of pen computing. It runs a modified version of Windows 3.11 called “Windows for Pen Computing”.

It’s almost exactly like using Windows Tablet PC Edition—pen gestures, a floating input window, and portrait mode; except with a monochrome screen … and Windows 3.11. Surprisingly though, the device looks a whole lot nicer than my HP Compaq tc4400—the Toshiba has only one external button (vs. six), two status LEDs (vs. six), and all of its ports (except for power) are hidden away under hinged covers (vs. all twelve of them exposed).

Toshiba even built support for the pen into the BIOS with a context-sensitive entry pad in lieu of an attached keyboard.

There wasn’t much left on the device, except for some Tcl/Tk applications for an old honours report evaluation on flick gestures.