aha! software corporation – InkWriter 2.0 for Windows (Brochure)

This brochure is aha! software corporation's marketing material for InkWriter 2.0 for Windows, presented under the banner "The Only Word Processor for Your Pen" alongside the paired headlines "The power of word processing" and "The convenience of pen and paper."¹ The brochure explains that the product let users write, sketch, and mark up notes by pen and then revise, format, and print them with the capabilities of a word processor — a combination it credits to aha!'s SmartInk technology.¹

InkWriter was aha! software's first product, announced on June 14, 1993 as the initial entry in its InkProcessor product line.² aha! described it as the first product to let users of pen-based computers, personal communicators, and PDAs edit and search handwritten words in the form of electronic ink without first translating them into computer text.² The software was built on the company's patent-pending SmartInk technology, which automatically recognized whether a user was writing paragraphs, making lists, marking up, drawing, or editing and handled each appropriately, and the initial release ran on GO Corp.'s PenPoint operating system at a $249 suggested retail price.²

On June 10, 1994, aha! announced the release and shipment of InkWriter for Windows, the version this brochure markets.³ The Windows version used either the handwriting recognition built into Microsoft's Windows for Pen Computing or other software such as that from Communication Intelligence Corporation, and supported "deferred recognition" so users could translate their writing later rather than correcting it as they wrote.³ According to the brochure, the program required Microsoft Windows 3.1 or higher with Windows for Pen Computing 1.0 and ran on pen tablets including the IBM ThinkPad, Compaq Concerto, and Fujitsu 325Point.¹ It was available at a $199 suggested list price, with a $149 introductory price for direct orders placed before August 1, 1994.³

aha! quickly extended InkWriter beyond Windows: on September 28, 1994 it announced a version for Sony's Magic Link and other Magic Cap-based personal communicators,⁴ and in October 1994 Fujitsu announced it would ship a version of InkWriter with its Stylistic 500 tablet computer.⁵ The Magic Cap version shipped in June 1995.⁶ On April 8, 1996, Microsoft Corporation announced an agreement to acquire aha! software corporation, which it described as a leading developer of electronic-ink note-taking and editing software for mobile computers and communicators.⁷

AI generated using primary sources referenced in the footnotes