As Long As I Have This Computer...

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...Then I'm going to ask you guys YET ANOTHER question about my Toshiba Satellite A665. (It's like I don't know this computer or something! ) I found out a while back that this laptop has Pen Input! The only problem is that I don't know what kind of "pen" to use. If any of you have a Toshiba Satellite of this model (A665-S6086), do you use the pen input? If so, what kind of pen do you use? What would you recommend?

Have you tried searching support.toshiba.com for this particular model?

I'd think the user manual (downloadable) should answer your question.

The manual doesn't say anything about it, nor does the website. They love supporting the P-, L-, C-, and S-series though.

I expect this is a general reference to the types of device that can be used with this or any other computer: mouse, trackball, joystick, light-pen etc. and the fact that the manual doesn't reference it seems to back that.

Unless there is some odd type of pen-specific input socket that can't be used with anything else (is there even such a thing?) - for "pen" I'd read "pen plus tablet" (the Wacom range, for example) - and that would be handled easily via USB.

The screen can be calibrated for pen input, if I had the pen. It's kind of like a touchscreen, only it needs a pen. I just need to figure out what kind of pen, brand names included.

Sounds like you're describing a light-pen, where the pen is touched on various illuminated areas on the screen to make something happen but I've not seen one of those for years.

Where did you see these claims for pen input? Windows has supported pen input for a while now (XP, and before?) but I've never seen it referenced with anything other than a graphics tablet and pen. (I was playing about with this recently with my Wacom tablet: just write normally on it and a utility converts it to plain text - quite effectively, too)

All screens can be calibrated for pen input, given a graphics tablet and pen: the corners of the tablet are calibrated so they align correctly with the corners of the screen.

It says so on the Computer Properties under "Pen and Touch," and there's a whole section for using the Tablet PC in the Control Panel.

Just because it's in the control panel doesn't mean your computer supports it.

I got to a screen that was apparently a calibration screen at one point. It had cross-hairs and everything. It said "tap on the cross-hairs with the pen to calibrate." or something like that.

Again, that doesn't mean that your computer supports pen input. It just has the software for it.

But I never had a pen, so I don't know for sure. What I need to know is the kind of pen, brand name even that I need.

It's not just the pen - there needs to be hardware in the laptop screen to read the touch signals *from* the pen, which it sounds like your computer does not have.

Oh, crap... Well, thank you for answering my questions. So much for drawing with the screen...

Ah yes - that's just standard Windows stuff and as sliqua-jcooter says, you'll need the extra hardware too - but it's quite easily managed: check out the range of tablets from Wacom; there are cheaper compatible types available too.

I already have a Bamboo Pen Tablet from Wacom, it just isn't working at the moment. It just plain quit for no reason one day, and it hasn't worked since. I'll try replacing the pen point, now that I found them, but if this tablet is anything like the one I heard about from someone on another site, then it'll sort itself out.