Re: [NTLK] Palm LifeDrive

On Apr 17, 2007, at 4:21 AM, Lord Groundhog wrote:

> It was like "writing lines" for punishment in school, and as you
> can see,
> towards the end I had trouble performing the repetitive task (for
> comparison
> I did the same thing on my Pismo keyboard, and again the repetition
> produced
> deterioration of accuracy). Only 3 errors, all towards the end,
> and that
> average speed make that an acceptable performance for me by the
> Newton.

I'm pretty impressed with your skill and accuracy with HWR. Sadly,
even at the peak of my HWR days I never came anywhere near close to 3
errors in 320 words. Was always more like 10-20 times that many. =^(

> I'm not surprised that you found normal printing slower than a one-
> stroke
> substitute-set for the alphabet. Cumulatively, you'd be saving
> significant
> fractions of seconds that way. On your other point, I wish I knew
> what
> makes one person's cursive so easily recognizable and another person's
> obscure to the Newton. I'll bet the HWR programmers would've liked
> to know
> too. If they did know, they should have told us.

Yeah, I don't know how many times I've wished that the developers had
written a guide for gaining greater accuracy with the HWR engine.

Maybe I should phrase that in a question. Does anyone know of any
good literature about improving accuracy in HWR? This could be very
handy for me, as I do use a pen tablet at my computer and relying
more on HWR would help me slow the speed at which I'm crippling my
hands.

> Interesting to know that. I'm in the opposite camp: I just can't use
> graffiti. For my life I can't make that ugly symbol-set stay in my
> head. I
> can write in Russian, Greek, Hebrew, and even a very little in ancient
> Chinese, but that graffiti stuff does my head in. I have this Palm
> Vxci or
> whatever it's called, that I gave up on after trying to master it.
> Now it
> sits in a drawer except when I can be bothered to take it out and
> try to
> write on it using the quick(!) reference list to remind me of the
> symbols.
> It makes me feel illiterate. I use it when I'm in the mood to
> humiliate
> myself.

Not trying to convince you of anything, but just for the sake of your
curiosity, you might look here:

http://palm-users.p90.net/articles/Graffiti_Tutorial.html

That's what I came up with. Six basic shapes, each with variations of
rotation or reflection, cover the whole of the alphanumeric set.

> I was rubbish at shorthand too. That almost makes sense to me,
> except that
> shorthand is more than just letter-by-letter equivalence, so
> graffiti isn't
> a comparison. (Maybe "They" should come up with a "shorthand
> recognition
> system"? Anyone for "e-Pit"?)

It's crazy enough that it just might work!

...and it actually goes back to what I've always considered to be the
killer feature of the Newton: greater reliance on gestural commands.
Not just for text, but for actions and commands. NewtOS was the first
real step forward in UI since we learned to point and click and drag
in 1984. Suddenly there were more options for pointing than just tap
and doubletap. OK the right mouse button counts as a step forward,
but even that is just more tapping.

Yeah, that's not exactly shorthand like you were talking about, but I
think it is like shorthand from a user interface point of view.

And that's my major complaint with the HWR engines available on
desktop computers. I've used Calligrapher on Windows (based on the
old Newt HWR engine) and Inkwell (based on Rosetta) and neither seem
to have much capacity for issuing commands or initiating programs.
Maybe I'm missing something there. I suppose I could learn to use the
"function buttons" at the top of my Wacom tablet. =^)

> I didn't take it that way, but like all of us, my attitude to the
> Newt is
> conditioned by my experience of it, which in my case has been very
> good, and
> I realize I can get a little carried away at times. So that was
> just me
> being defensive.

Me too. Thanks for not letting my defensiveness lead to more
escalation. You're a class act.

Steve

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