CalComp Moves from Output to Input with New Hybrid Device
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Although traditionally known for its plotters and printers,
CalComp hopes to break into the input device market with a new
gadget that's a hybrid of a mouse and a digitizing tablet. The
company is showing the new Wiz for the first time at Fall Comdex
this week. Wiz looks like a mouse but requires a special
digitizing pad that can be customized with templates for a
variety of software applications on either the IBM PC or the
Macintosh.
 
The Wiz looks like a mouse except that it has a transparent
crosshair pointer at the front, which you use to align the Wiz
with locations on the digitizing pad. The mouse has three buttons
that toggle forward and backward, allowing six possible settings,
four of which the user can define. The Wiz can also be configured
for left- or righthand use. Using an electromagnetic rather than
an electrostatic surface for the digitizing pad, Wiz has a
resolution of 1000 dots per inch, allowing precise pointing
control.
 
Some 35 application templates are available, which allow you to
bypass the pulldown and popup menus typical of most graphical
interface applications. Instead, you have all the menu options
displayed right on the digitizing pad and you simply move the
crosshair pointer to the option you want and click on it. The Wiz
package comes with a Windows template in the PC version and a Mac
Finder/HyperCard template in the Mac version.
 
Some of the applications the Wiz will work with are AutoCAD and
AutoSketch, Generic CADD, Claris Mac programs, Freelance Plus,
Harvard Graphics, Versacad, PageMaker, WordPerfect, and Excel.
 
Wiz is available now at an introductory price of $199 for the
first 90 days; it will be $249 thereafter. Application templates
are $49 each. CalComp will introduce an optional electronic pen
for the device early next year, which will allow more precise
input for CAD or graphics drawing.
 
Contact: CalComp, 2411 W. La Palma Ave, Anaheim, CA 92801;
(714) 821-2000.
 
                              --- Nick Baran
 
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