[scottjl]

@scion, there was, it was called the newton, and it was laughed, mocked, and ridiculed out of existence. for the time it was an amazing product. but apple learned their lesson and many others aren't going to repeat the mistakes.

do you realize how few companies really do not innovate new, as in something new and different, technology? apple spends boatloads, microsoft spends quite a bit too, ibm has some amazing research labs (i've seen 'em). but most companies only innovate along existing product lines, developing a new motherboard with fewer chips that will save them some money. windows tablets, available today, are not going to be anyone's new legal pad because the OS support isn't there, even in windows 7. windows 7 is designed for a desktop/laptop/netbook, with a keyboard. any handwriting/drawing recognition layer is going to exist on top and basically try and fake keypresses back into your applications, a kludgy solution at best. a company would need to develop an operating system, from the ground up, that wholly supports handwriting recognition and drawing support, just like the newton had. the only two companies that could do that right now is apple (which still has the newton os in a dusty drawer somewhere) and microsoft (they have enough trouble with new versions of windows, let alone a whole new OS). it simply isn't going to happen.

ps. i had several newtons from the 100 up through a 2100 and they all worked very well for me. i used it for several years in both educational and business environments and it handled notes, drawings, memos, appointments, contacts, etc. just fine for me. sad that it had such a bad rep. every once in a while i dust off my 2100 and it still amazes people with what it can do and they wonder why there isn't anything like it available today.