🚀 go-pugleaf

The "EE's Tools & Toys" section of the April _IEEE_Spectrum_ has a blurb
about an interesting portable computer.

      FROM CHICKEN SCRATCH TO ASCII

      A computer for keyboard illiterates lets them write in longhand
      on a screen, and then translates the scrawl into ASCII text.  But
      first the machine must spend 45 minutes or so being trained to read
      a person's handwriting. ...

      The Linus Write-Top, as the computer is called, has a 5-by-8-inch
      (12.5-by-20-centimeter) flat, electroluminescent display with a
      conductive coating.  A stylus wired to the computer establishes
      an electrical connection with the coated surface, so that as the
      stylus moves, it triggers the darkening of a series of pixels,
      which are then translated into ASCII code.

      The machine--$3300 with modem, $2995 without--is used primarily
      for data collection ... The microprocessor it uses is compatible
      with an IBM personal computer ... Contact: Linus Technologies Inc.,
      11130 Sunrise Valley Dr., Reston, Va. 22091; 703-476-1500.

The accompanying picture shows a person filling out an electronic form
while examining a damaged car.  The Write-Top looks about 10 inches on a
side; I can't judge the thickness.  The black-on-amber screen seems to have
normal resolution.  The article doesn't say whether the touch- sensitive
surface's resolution matches the screen's.

I'd like a portable Mac like this.  No large, weighty keyboard.  No high-
speed LCD display to keep the cursor visible while it moves.  Just map
tapping motions into mouse clicks, and strokes into mouse drags, and stick
some shift/command/option/caps lock buttons on it somewhere.