From: Newtvana (newton_at_ordersomewherechaos.com)
Date: Sat Feb 01 2003 - 13:30:06 PST
Trackpads have much less resolution than Tablets. Think about it this
way:
1) Trackpads use human fingers to detect a location. Tablets use
special 'pens' with a powered or nylon tip that is much more precise
than a blunt human finger.
2) Trackpads simply need to know what direction and how fast a finger
is moving in order to move the mouse cursor. The trackpad is a
'relative' position device, much like a mouse. If you pick up your
finger (or your mouse) off the tracking surface, you can reposition it
independent of the cursor on screen. However with a digital tablet,
there's usually a 1:1 or absolute position. In order to support
anything more than what.. 800x600, you'd need more sensitivity, which
is what the tablets offer.
Trackpads and tablets have different if somewhat overlapping needs.
That said, there's no reason why Apple could not make the xBook
trackpads more sensitive and allow for this option in the future.
And with the sheer amount of acreage that the 17" PowerBook has, I'm
hoping that they do.
...Ross...
On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 05:20 PM, Jim Witte wrote:
> I haven't used InkWell yet because I don't have a USB graphics
> tablet
> - just an old ArtZ ADB with a converter. I asked on the darwin-drivers
> list whether a shim graphics tablet driver could be built that would
> let InkWell work with a iBook/PowerBook's trackpad (with a stylus that
> would emulate finger capacitance). The response I got was, yet, but
> the resolution isn't good enough. Does this make any sense? I can't
> imagine that the resolution of the Newton touchpad is much more than
> the iBook trackpad (unless the Newton touchpad's resolution that goes
> into the Inker is greater than the screen resolution). The other
> possibility is that the algorithms for InkWell use more data than those
> in the Newton.
>
> Jim
>
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-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
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