Monday 13 May 2002

Pic of the day: In the foreground, left to right: Keyboard, Wacom tablet with mouse & pen, and Logitech trackball. In the background: External modem and Jensen USB hub, 4 port. In the middle and all around: Cable spaghetti.

Wacom day

Today I got the Wacom Graphire2 tablet. It comes with a mouse and a pen. The tablet looks like a stylish mouse pad, except it has a silver cord with a USB plug. (Luckily, I already have a 1->4 USB hub lying around, just gaping like a nest of baby birds for more USB goodness.)

The mouse looks like a slightly smallish standard cordless mouse. It even has a scroll wheel. How it is powered is a mystery to me, there is no sign of a battery in either the mouse or the pen. I suppose it is powered by induction, through the electric field above the tablet. The tablet is definitely surrounded by some sort of field, because it detects the position of the pen well before it touches the surface. Indeed, I navigate the cursor entirely by moving the pen in the air over the pad, touching only to click.

The tablet is just brimming with sheer gadget niftiness, of course. It is almost a shame to keep it at home where people can't pass by, stop and be astounded. Well, I guess it helps that I display it here, but I suspect most of you are not so easily impressed.

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Apart from the plenitude of nift, though, the pen thing is yet another attempt at saving my hand, wrist & arm. Not a very successful attempt thus far, I admit. But then again this is our first night together, and I am still clumsy and don't know the moves. Besides, I was back at work today; by the end of the day, my hand was pretty much ruined again. One work day a week seems to be slightly too much. So I guess the hand needs whatever assistance it can get.