Pen Computing Magazine: Pen Computing and Windows 95 http://www. pencomputing .com/developer/pen_ extensions.

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Pen Computing and Windows 95
Microsoft unveils a much improved version of its pen
extensions. The tough part is finding them.
From Pen Computing #7 December 1995
One of the most common questions I see on the Pen Technology
Forum these days is "I'm thinking of upgrading my Compaq
Concerto/Dauphin DTR-1/Your Pen Computer Here" to Windows
95, should I do it? The answer is a qualified no. No, you can't go out
and buy the Windows 95 Upgrade at Egghead and install it on your
pen computer and expect your pen to work. I doesn't work that way.
Here's how it does (or sometimes does) work.
Windows for Pen Computing version 1.0, you might recall, is
actually an add-on to Windows 3.11. It consists of a dll,
PENWIN.DLL, a video driver like VGAP.DRV, pen drivers and
handwriting recognizer (MARS was the standard Microsoft driver).
You obtained the elements of Windows for Pen 1.0 from the
manufacturer of your pen hardware or with the Windows SDK (it
came with Visual C++ version 1.5). This version of the pen
extensions to Windows was referred to as the Pen SDK, version
1.0.
The pen services for Windows 95 are referred to as Windows for
Pen, Version 2.0. They include, among other things, a greatly
enhanced boxed edit control, and a new handwriting recognition
engine (maybe it recognizes English now as well as Martian!) Other
than that, the functionality is roughly the same. The same four
controls are supported: boxed edits (bedit), handwriting edits
(hedit), ink input, and popup keyboard. The gestures are pretty
much the same, too.
Perhaps you remember that Microsoft was promising that pen
support would be part of Windows 95? Well , there is some pen
support built in, but not a whole lot. As far as I can tell, instead of
one dll, there are now two: PENWIN.DLL and PKPD.DLL.
PKPD.DLL is the Ink Manager Library. It takes care of displaying ink
on the screen. It is what is included in Windows 95. PENWIN.DLL

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Pen Computing Magazine: Pen Computing and Windows 95 http://www.pencomputing.com/developer/pen_extensions.html
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contains all of the functions that handle pen and ink input like
gesture handing and calls to the recognizer. That is NOT included in
Windows 95. The only place that you can get it is from the hardware
vendor who supports your machine. PENWIN.DLL, the pen driver
and the recognition engine are only available from a hardware
reseller.
So, if you want to put Windows 95 on your pen machine, you first
have to obtain the pen extensions from the manufacturer. This
could be tough if you own a machine like the Dauphin DTR-1 or
(shudder) an NCR 3125. Even vendors currently supporting
machines are not jumping on the Windows 95 bandwagon. My
company sells turnkey pen solutions to manufacturers. We primarily
sell vertically-oriented machines from Kalidor, Norand, Symbol, and
Telxon. I called a few of our reps at these companies to see when
and if Windows 95 would be supported. The first answered "Gee,
nobody's asked me that question yet." When I pointed out that
Microsoft would eventually pull support for Windows 3.11 he replied
"Yeah, I guess we'd better start thinking about that."
Of course, it's not all that grim. I have heard that drivers are already
available for the Compaq Concerto, Toshiba T200, and soon will be
for the Fujitsu Stylistic 500. The real problem is if you have an
unsupported pen machine like the DTR-1. In which case, you'd
better stick with 3.11 (I can't imagine installing Windows 95 on a
machine with so little storage space, anyway.)
In addition to user questions about Windows 95, there are a whole
host of developer questions. As a developer, you first have to be
sure that your target machine runs (or will run) Windows 95. None
of ours do, so that's a problem.
Assuming they do then you can choose your development
environment. I'm told that there is an updated version of penctrl.vbx
called pen2ctrl.vbx to access version 2.0 pen services from Visual
Basic. I assume this is the 16-bit version since it is a vbx. As far as I
know, there are no plans for a pen OCX from Microsoft. Let's face it,
the pen developer market is currently too small compared to the
rest of the world for Microsoft to bother with it.
You can always access the pen services the old fashion way;
making the API calls directly from a language like Cor C++. If your
company specializes in pen development you should probably
consider creating your own OCX or other component depending on
your preferred development environment. We're considering Delphi
components. It is possible, of course, that a third party might
develop and support these, but again, with the market as small as it
is, this is unlikely.
One stumbling block for developers is obtaining PENWIN.DLL.
Since this dll is no longer distributed with the development
environments, that probably means getting a tablet device for your
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Pen Magazine: Pen Computing and Windows 95 http://www. pencomputing .com/developer/pen_ extensions. htm I
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development machine which supports Windows 95 and Windows
for Pen 2.0. I've gone through a bunch of these, a WACOM tablet
for Pen Point development, then an Acecat tablet I never did get to
work with Windows for Pen 1.0. I recently picked up a WACOM
Artpad II which is a blast to play with but doesn't support pen
extensions. It uses the Wintab interface to work with Windows
programs. I am hoping they'll eventually support pen services and
distribute Windows for Pen 2.0. I've heard that CIC's Handwriter (a
tablet bundled with their handwriting recognition engine) supports
Windows for Pen Computing 2.0.
As you can see, the bottleneck for both developers and end users is
the hardware OEMs. They are the only ones who can distribute the
pen extensions for Windows 95. They won't do it until their
customers demand it. That means us. (In reality it probably means
some huge company with an order for a zillion or so machines
contingent on Windows 95.)
My biggest concern is that Microsoft is really pushing developers to
go to 32-bits. Versions of Visual C++ after 2.0 can't even make
16-bit executables. Visual Basic 4.0 can, but you miss out on all of
the really neat stuff they've added in. And of course, most folks
want to move to Windows 95 and 32-bit apps to take advantage of
the increased speed and multitasking ability.
Many of the hardware vendors, however, are in no hurry to move. I
don't know the particulars of Microsoft's distribution agreements for
Windows for Pen 2.0, so I don't know if that's a stumbling block. But
if Microsoft keeps pushing, and the hardware vendors don't move,
we developers are going to find ourselves in a very tight spot.
Personally, I'm not too worried yet. For the types of vertical
applications that we provide, Windows 95 is not essential. As long
as we can still support Windows 3.11 applications, we're OK. Heck,
we still have several customers actively using our PenPoint product
on IBM Thinkpad 71 OTs. If we can support them, we can support
Windows 3.11 users.
The bottom line is that at this point pen computing is a niche
market, and one which is too small to be a blip on Microsoft's radar.
So we have to rely on the hardware vendors and other developers
to keep things moving in the right direction. The market might be too
small for Microsoft, but it's plenty big enough for the rest of us. And
while pen computing isn't changing our lives the way we initially
thought it would, it is solving some real problems in real life
situations, saving people time and money. Windows 95 will run on
most pen computers eventually, we just have to be a little patient.
- Lisa Stampfli
Lisa Stampfli is VP of Product Development and co-founder of
Pen \.'}mputing Magazine: Pen Computing and Windows 95
http://www.pencomputing.com/developer/pen_extensions.html
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PenFact, Inc. in Boston, MA, providing pen-based and mobile
solutions for manufacturing and field inspection. She has been a
pen developer for more than four years.
All contents 1 995-1998 Pen Computing Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction in any form is strictly prohibited.
Contact the Pen Computing Publishing Office for reprint information.
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