LGR Oddware - The CrossPad from 1998

Huh, I never realized cross was a more premium brand. I have a cross pen sitting on my desk at work, it was free from some business we worked with. Its a nice pen

Zachary Outen

I had heard AAAA's were a thing but I have never seen a device that actually made use of them. An odd choice of battery

Garoninja

Thanks! I think I really nailed the laidback vibe four or five years ago now. I’ve stuck with the same artists ever since, they work so well.

LGR

I mean there should be enough force in a fountain pan. Just sideward. Would be cool to se if that is possible at all, could be a cool pen option for a digitizing tablet.

Ezydenias

LGR

I gotta say again, I love the music you are using in your videos, the subtle piano, sometime elevator music, sometimes cool lounge music always make me feel cozy. I love the music of Leisure Suit Larry games and your music selection always remind if of them :)

Dukefazon

Ezydenias

I had an IBM Transnote, a touch-screen WinXP computer that had built-in cross-pad technology, and would be an amazing piece of oddware to have! Thanks again for making these great videos.

Sanguine Games

Take a look at the Wacom Bamboo Folio for a modern equivalent. For something a bit cheaper, consider the Boogie Board tablets.

paul

The securities fraud discussion reminded me of the Matt Levine idea that “everything is securities fraud” (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everything-everywhere-is-securities-fraud ) basically, sometimes companies do things that cause their stock prices to fall, and if they don’t tell their stockholders they’re planning on losing money, there’s theoretical grounds to sue them for securities fraud. America’s great!

CanyonMID

Ahh true, I’ll add a mention of it!

LGR

Maybe I am odd, but I actually would love something like this today. Just like it is but with USB transfer rates. I would love to take notes and just have the notes I took, with our without OCR ready for me to store digitally. It is part of my need to get rid of paper and keep the data initiative that I started so long ago. Writing than later scanning, if I remember is not as convenient... then again, maybe this would fall in the same trap. The lack of place for the pen is an oversight for sure. Thanks for the video. Truly spectacular!

CubicleNate

I love the Oddware episodes and this is one of my favourites. It fits the bill so well - a fascinating product doing the job it was designed to do, impressively well, but not a job that anyone would really want to pay good money for. I remember seeing people turn up to meetings with handwriting tablets (there was a certain type that would do that) and even at the time I thought 'Why? Why wouldn't you simply write that down on paper?

Shiela Dixon

Manager toy presumably. ☺️ Impressing the others in your meeting. I rather stick to Cross fountain pens.

msuboot

Possibly worth a mention of the IBM ThinkPad TransNote which integrated one of these pads with a (slightly odd) ThinkPad. Always wanted to pick one up, but they sold used for far too much.

Julien Goodwin

Long before I had a scanner I used to fax drawings and handwritten stuff to my PC, and the results weren't much different. It wasn't a ridiculous amount of work, but I certainly don't miss those times. I would have liked to have one of these back in the day, even though it was certainly not ideal for drawings. Thank God for drawing tablets.

Pablo Rodriguez

I feel one thing missing from the video is any kind of information about how the pad triangulates the co-ordinates on the page of where you 'clicked' the pen. I know it isn't pressure related and it is done with radio transmission... but nothing was stated about the radio receiver inside and how it figures this out. It'd be interesting to know if could get confused by the pen being used on the plastic borders (just outside of the paper pad) or even on the nearby desk or other paperwork right next to the CrossPad.

Steven Maddox

Reminds me of a weight scale. It's pretty darn impressive for the time it was released. I'd have bought one if I had seen it.

Gary Leigh

My first thought was "this is really cool," but then I realized it was probably easier to just scan documents and OCR them. You don't have to have a special pen, you don't have to remember to turn the page on the Crosspad, and you can probably get a pretty good scanner for $400.

Chris Rogers

That thing is seriously cool. I used to get this exact functionality with an Apple Pencil and an iPad, and to think they had it functioning that well back then, is kinda mind-blowing.

John Covil

Walls looking kinda bare in the new office, kinda needs a couple Voodoo posters to spruce it up

Hernando Heilbron

Yeah, there's no way Doctors used this. I don't even think we have the computing power today...

BatteryPoweredBricks