Notes From The Editors

Welcome to the fourth edition of Pen-Based Computing. In recent weeks, there has been no lack of excitement in this industry. The Technologic Partners’ Pen Computing conference held in San Francisco attracted nearly 700 attendees with close to 40 companies demonstrating products. At the conference, CIC introduced its PenDOS operating environment, described in our cover story. We also provide a full report of the conference in this issue.

But in the midst of the excitement, it is important to keep things in perspective. A guest contributor, David Mentley of Stanford Resources, provides us with a sobering look at the state of display technology, which, according to Mentley, needs some major improvements before pen-based systems are ready for prime time. In fact, it’s clear that we are in the very early stages of this technology. While many observers are skeptical and view pen-based computing as a passing fad, this skepticism is based on the current state of computing technology. We are probably at least two years away from seeing hardware that realizes the objectives of truly “mobile computing.”

That’s not to say that there are not solutions right now. Mary Ricci, a programmer at DMS, Inc., gives us a glimpse of a software development project for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection using the GridPad. Ray Valdes introduces us to an Oregon company developing pen-based applications for the medical field. And the editors take a look at a new communications development platform from Traveling Software and at the future of RISC processors in the pen-based market. And we have some interesting new additions to our race card of pen-based contenders.

Again, we would like to encourage our readers to write or call us; let us know what you think, tell us about your pen computing projects. And we wish you a pleasant summer!