Wacom Graphire A6

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Dilbert cartoons and money stashed beneath the tablet's cover sheet.

Ever since I first used a Wacom tablet during my civil service I absolutely loved that idea. It's just great when cool physics and good engineering meet. Some people call it induction – to others it's magic. And I have a light, versatile and wireless pen that I can use on a tablet for drawing or to replace the mouse.

When getting my PowerBook I ordered an A6 size Wacom Graphire tablet with it. And it's a wonderful little device for my purposes.

Since switching to Mac OS X, its software support became worse though. I still think that the mouse movements felt a bit smoother and more precise when I used the tablet in OS 9. I am also seeing the problem that sometimes the tablet will not turn itself on when the computer wakes from sleep. Then it has to be disconnected from the USB Hub and reconnected which is a bit annoying.

The tablet also came with a mouse that can be operated on it. That comes handy when visitors absolutely ‘require’ having things like superfluous buttons or a scroll wheel on a mouse.