PenPower Chinese Handwriter and non-Tooya tablet?

[Lin Ai]

Does anyone know if the PenPower Chinese Handwriter software can be
purchased without the Tooya tablet and used with another brand of
tablet?
I'm thinking about something smaller and less expensive like a Wacom
Bamboo.
Given that PenPower seems to sell the Tooya tablet alone for $169 (vs.
$199 for the bundle with Mac software), the software alone could be
relatively inexpensive, even allowing for the bundle being less than
the sum of the hardware+software cost.

[George Chen]

You actually can find PenPower's Pen TC software freely available on their Taiwan corp. ftp site. The problem is, the software only recognize the PenPower Tooya Tablet.

[Lin Ai]

Many thanks for the info.

On Apr 4, 12:59 am, "George Chen" <george.y.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You actually can find PenPower's Pen TC software freely available on their
> Taiwan corp. ftp site. The problem is, the software only recognize the
> PenPower Tooya Tablet.
>

[Haiminh]

This may sound like a stupid question with an obvious answer (though
I've done a few searches on Google to no real avail), what's their
"freely available" FTP address? None of the ones I've found give any
login details and I've been unable to connect.

On Apr 4, 5:59 am, "George Chen" <george.y.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You actually can find PenPower's Pen TC software freely available on their
> Taiwan corp. ftp site. The problem is, the software only recognize the
> PenPower Tooya Tablet.
>

[George Chen]

Try this:

http://www.penpower.com.tw/taiwan/7_0teach/7_5update/7_5_8_01.html

Note that the software / drivers are useless without the Tooya tablet. It simply would not work with thrid party tablet.

[Haiminh]

Damn. Thanks for the link - I don't speak or read Chinese (I'm doing
this on behalf of someone else) but as far as I can tell on the page,
the Penpower TC software for Mac isn't actually available for
download.

I know that they don't have any plans to release the Mac software as a
standalone product this year (according to a representative via
email), which is quite ridiculous.

We need to get a concerted effort to let them know there's a definite
market in Mac users - and since they've already got the software
written and released, it's not as if they need to put a huge amount of
resources in to put it out as a standalone product.

[George Chen]

Try this link too:

ftp://ftp.penpower.com.tw/public/Download/Tooya/ (from browser)

Grab both .dmg disk images.

---

Re: no standalone software for Mac.

The sad thing is, the mindset is very much your typical hardware company. They just want to sell more of their hardware. Software is very much a secondary concern. But their fail to realize, eventually, over time, their hardware will turn into commodities...

Mac OS X 10.5 already HAS built in handwriting recognition support, it's just a matter of time Apple "wired" that into other language like Chinese. Then you can use any tablet or even the touchpad for Asian language input....

[iota]

Hopefully, Macs will take off in China and consequently spur better
Chinese support all around. I don't think Apple would go through the
laborious process of adding Chinese handwriting support unless they
knew they had or could get a profitable user base.

> Mac OS X 10.5 already HAS built in handwriting recognition support, it's
> just a matter of time Apple "wired" that into other language like Chinese.
> Then you can use any tablet or even the touchpad for Asian language
> input....
>

[iota]

oops forgot to include this link:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/03/21/apple-moves-first-china-store-down-the-road-opens-in-summer

[limhockkoon]

I bought a Penpower Handwriter TAB 403 which suppose to support window
Vista and Mac OSX 10.4 and up. The package come with the TAB403
writing pad and both window and Mac application CD. It also comes
with the value add CD which I think only work in the window
environment. I install the TAB 403 driver an the penpower handwriting
for Mac from the Mac CD. The installation go through without any
problem. However, when I try to start the "penpower Pen SC"
application, the application will ask you to install the writing pad
to check the software installation. It seems that the application
does not detect the driver properly and refuse to launch. The TAB403
can be detect by the system as a usb device as i can use the pen to
move the mouse cursor. The local shop can help much as all of them
only how to deal with Window. The local Singapore support office only
answer phone call during their office hours. I have send in the email
to their support address and see how soon I will get the response. I
have seen post in the group that user are sucessful getting the
software up and running. Like to see anyone who can help..

--HK

[limhockkoon]

Received reply from Penpower support which state that the TAB403
driver come with the CD only work under Mac OSX 10.4. They email me
another version which suppose to work under OSX 10.5 but it did not.
When I run it, it said it need to run under "Classic Environment" ...
Look like we are going backward... Still waiting to get the fix...

--HK