So you have your big oblong box containing your Pilot, its software, cables and cradle and also a little white piece of card containing the directions for using the input system of the Pilot - Graffiti. Oh dear, you were told by your friends and dealer that the system was easy to use but is it THAT easy!? Lets find out...
First of all we will take a quick look at the origins of Graffiti, way back in the depths of time when people still wore kipper ties and flares. It has been obvious from day one that someone would try to replace the keyboard of a computer - not because it was difficult to use or expensive, just for the sake of being different. Hence we have had many different input types of the years. Voice recognition, handwriting recognition and even thought recognition have all been tried but with little success. The problem lay in the fact that computers (referring to ones within the reach of ordinary mortals) simply lacked the power to perform the tasks.
However, with the advent of the beasts we have on our desks today, more and more of these tasks are becoming a reality and some are even making it to the palm of our hands. The Apple Newton Message Pad - remember it? Who could forget it! It was the device which truly brought the generic term PDA under the public spotlight and hence tarnished it with incredulity for many years on. People were promised recognition of their own handwriting on a device small enough for an attaché case along with the status symbol value of being able to take it out and jot electronic notes will everyone else licked their pencil tips and scribbled away. Unfortunately trying to recognize handwriting using the processor in the first Newton was never going to work and only the “techies” who endured it for a few months and taught it to translate their scrawls ever had any joy from them. Life has since been improved for the Newton, with the backlit 130, sporting a new OS (2.0) which boasts a more efficient and accurate handwriting system amongst other things. However, it had its chance and blew it, and unless the problem riddled Apple can find a brand new machine and a massive advertising campaign to bring it back it is never going to be a world beater.
Anyway, enough about the Newton, you are reading the “Piloteer” which by definition means you are probably fairly keen to hear something about your beloved Pilot.
Now Palm (the REAL makers of the Pilot, who were taken over by USR) had the right idea. They realized that to have a device which was truly portable (i.e. fitted in your pocket without poking out) they could not also have a power-house of a processor within it, which meant no Newton-type recognition. So they came up with Graffiti, a cut down version of the alphabet which utilized strokes of the stylus in the shapes of simplified letters to create real letters and words. Sequences of strokes were to be used for functions like capital letters, special characters and punctuation. This is what you have on your Pilot. The question is, do you find it more of a bind than a boon?
At first the answer is probably yes. Although Graffiti is very intuitive to use and much research (or luck :-)) has gone into its creation, it is not as fast as keyboard input at first. Luckily Palm has countered this initial problem by positioning the Pilot’s feature set at such a level that the most you are ever going to want to enter into it is a short memo of a conversation or note to a colleague. However, this need not be the case, as with a little practice and the development of your own technique you can soon be scrawling away and seeing the neat characters appear on your screen in a matter of seconds.
Here is a list of general tips to increase your speed:
(1) Install the “Giraffe” game which comes with your Pilot. However futile it may seem this is one of the best ways to memorize keystrokes.
(2) Keep the reference booklet with you or install the Graffiti Help program, as included on our “Cover Disk”. However good you think you are there will come a time when you need to know how to add an “Umlaut” to a “u” and you will wish you had followed this advice.
(3) Always use a firm, smooth stroke action. Remember that if you try to rush you will make a mistake, which will mean you have to perform a delete stroke which may go wrong, infuriating you further and before you know it the creases appear on the forehead, the hands grip your Pilot a little tighter and the day does not look so rosy anymore. Care will bring speed.
(4) Remember the “Shortcuts” function. This means you can specify a certain stroke sequence to generate a regularly used word. For instance, if I wanted to add my name at the end of each of my memos then I would install a shortcut so:
(where the red dot is the starting point) would generate “Marek Pawlowski”. This is a wonderful function and should not be ignored. You can set up your shortcuts in the “Preferences” application under the “Shortcuts” lists.
(5) Practice! Simply entering an existing document onto your Pilot when you have a spare moment will make a world of difference to your enter rate. You will start to develop your own technique and way of forming the strokes and within a day or two you will think nothing of writing a 300 word memo on your Pilot.
Well, until speech recognition reaches PDAs (UK market leader Psion Plc is planning this for its next generation of machine), Graffiti is the most natural form of input we have - so make the most of it.
All information contained within the magazine is ©PMN Publications 1996.