Posts: 68
Threads: 19
Joined: Sep 2009
hpnut: Interesting article. I think that the tablet's graphic UI has a lot of potential; it's a shame that it hasn't been better promoted by Microsoft and its industrial partners.
IMO, one of the biggest features (and advantages) of applications like Calculator (xCalc) and MathJournal is the free format input. You can scribble a calculation at some location on the page, add notes or observations (in MJ, even data plots!) and then go on to write other calculations later on the page.
BUT... if you look back and suddenly realize that you forgot something, or you decide that you want to do another calculation and place it near your first calculation (for comparison), Calculator and MJ will allow you to do this! This is one significant reason why free format is so useful. It is also the reason why I say that you can't really appreciate these types of tools without a little 'hands on" time.
As much as I love my HP calculators (and I have a few of them), the engineer in me has to admit that this is really the future of computing...