Cheap tablet, new driver = pretty nice tablet.

[bizzybody]

I bought a Cool-iCam CI-285 tablet for $15 on closeout a few years ago, never used it much because the last available drivers didn't work too well with XP. I dug it out yesterday to give it another try and of course ran into the same old problems.

I took the back off and found the main chip, made by Hynix but got zilch on searches for anything printed on it.

So I decided to try an experiment to see if the action of it could be improved. The grid in it is a flexible circuit much like in cheap keyboards and it didn't lay flat. The top case has a bunch of raised ribs and there's 16 pins that go through holes in the grid, which is held in place by little chunks of clear tubing.

The problem is the pin and hole spacing don't exactly match. Turns out that craft foam is exactly the thickness of those ribs, and I just happened to have a sheet. I cut pieces to fill all the spaces where the active area is. I finished it off with a sheet of bubble wrap with 16 holes punched to fit over the tube pieces. The overall action of it is much smoother with the grid mashed somewhat closer to flat VS being all lumpy.

But still the drivers were lousy. Cutting to the chase (after a long time of fruitless searching) I ran Unknown Device Identifier from Halfdone Development and it identified the tablet as a UC-Logic Technology Tablet WP3525 and a WP8060. One device, two ID's???

I expected a search for UC-Logic to lead to another dead company but <Gomer Pyle>Sur-prise! Sur-prise! Sur-prise!</Gomer Pyle> UC-Logic is alive and well and even better they still make tablets and they have drivers for XP, XP64, Vista, Windows 7 and OS X. And best of all for me, the driver supports the Cool-iCam CI-285. *sitting down happy dance*

But wait, there's more. I'm pretty certain the old driver only supported 256 levels of pressure sensitivity. This driver does 512. Oooooyeah. Who needs a friking Wacom? Just did some doodling in PhotoShop and it works great.

[puntoMX]

First I thought you were talking about a different tablet device, you know, the hyped ones .

So, it's a drawing tablet, I see. I used them 18 years ago for CAD applications, for just a year or so. Great that they still use the same chip for later model and different brand ones, I wonder if Genius uses the same chip also. Any way, happy for you that you have your new "toy" running after years.

[bizzybody]

First I thought you were talking about a different tablet device, you know, the hyped ones .

So, it's a drawing tablet, I see. I used them 18 years ago for CAD applications, for just a year or so. Great that they still use the same chip for later model and different brand ones, I wonder if Genius uses the same chip also. Any way, happy for you that you have your new "toy" running after years.

I used to have a bigger Calcomp RS232 tablet, sold under the name CIC Handwriter. It was originally sold with windows 3.1x handwriting recognition software, which didn't require pressure sensitivity, so the pen's tip was just on/off. With newer Calcomp drivers it worked great 98SE. I tried to find a pen for it with pressure sensing but any pens by themselves were priced higher than what a new Calcomp or Wacom tablet that size cost new. I guess everyone with excess old Calcomp pens liked them too much to part with them.