@董雅各, yeah I'm working on the tudou thing :-)

@nick, while it works (and is fun to use) it's a bit of a kludge at the moment: You need an Arduino to convert it to serial over USB, then you need a whole lot of gross things to make it work as a mouse in the computer. And to my annoyance, the whole thing has stopped working in Fedora 13 :-(

I'm now working on a version that is USB: you just plug a USB cable into it, and it appears to be a mouse. No unsightly circuit board, much quicker to set up and get going. Plus, I think I can make it work with Windows, Linux and MacOS, with no extra drivers needed.

I don't have a Wacom, so I don't know for sure, but I imagine that when you Wacom-owning dudes write, you're only using part of the Wacom surface, is that right? Hmm.

The thing I really like about my touchpad is that pretty much the whole of the writing area is mapped 1:1 right onto the whole of the Skritter writing area. It's really "where you write is where you want", with no wasted area or imprecision because you have to write small. My squigs usually match Skritter's strokes quite well.

Here in Australia, the most horrid pen-based Chinese entry devices start at around $60 (~US$50). To get any sort of Wacom, it's at least double that even for entry level.

My plan is to release the plans and the software under an open licence, so that anyone can do it. I would also consider a home business making and selling them. I think I can produce them for half the cost of the horrid Chinese ones, and they work so nicely with Skritter!

Nick, I'd love to find out why strokes are being dropped. What should I do? Ctrl-Alt-F and video myself in normal mode? Suggestions appreciated.

Oh and I'm happy to answer questions about my touchpad and collaborate on it.

Mitch (mjd).

nice, btw i think over at lilliput.cn they have some USB screens with touch.

are you in Melbourne? i'm across there for work every now and then.

@Neil: Yes Melbourne is my home!

Tis correct, you use a fraction of the tablet. Mine is actually about the size of a postage stamp.

I personally feel like the portion of the tablet I use is actually too big. I changed by input box to 250 pixels the other day and I still wish I could write in a smaller space, since I prefer to Skritter closer to the size of my actual writing. I could, of course, remap my Wacom, but then it wouldn't be any good for anything other than Skritter unless I remapped it twice a day.

A more elegant solution would be good but I'm not sure what. Should be possible to switch profiles quickly though?

I use about a quarter of the pad mapped to the screen.

Yes, I think a Ctrl+Alt+F and Ctrl+Alt+D video would help. Please also show what happens when you try to make a stroke quickly, without studiously positioning the stylus at the right starting location first.