[squarepeg]

This reminds me of Palm's Graffiti system used on the Palm Pilot range of PDAs [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS) ]. That system too used simple gestures that mimicked hand-writing.

Rather than training the system to learn how to decipher the user's input, it required the user to learn some basic gestures. The input speed may not have been as fast as the predictive touchscreen keyboards on iphone/android phones, but it was a pleasure to use and accuracy was second to none.

[RodgerTheGreat]

I think an important part of what made Graffiti so effective was the fact that you had access to a complete range of alphanumeric and punctuation characters without any need to switch modes. There were actually quite a number of onboard programming tools for Palm devices, so I could easily write little scripts in BASIC, Forth or OnboardC to pass the time or quickly try out an idea. It made the device feel more like a computer and less like a toy.

Most of the touch-based keyboards I've seen on modern smartphones perform acceptably when you're composing a message made out of English words, but you can just about forget coding on one. Even Lua, which is well-known for having a sparse syntax mainly composed of alphabetical keywords, is torture on an iPod Touch.

[aidenn0]

I remember that. I could actually graffiti faster than my handspring visor deluxe could keep up. The two downsides there are: 1) Needs 2 hands; I couldn't imaging using graffiti with my thumb while holding the device. I type on my phone with my thumb all the time 2) It infringes on Xerox's patents