10/14/2020
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`Pen Computing Magazine: A detailed look at Microsoft's Tablet PC project
`
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`THE MICROSOFT TABLET PC A detailed look at Microsoft's proposed Tablet PC (July 2001 issue)
`
`Flashback to 1992-1993: The pen computer craze is at its height. GRID, NEC, Momenta, NCR, Compaq, Samsung, Toshiba,
`IBM, Dauphin and others are all marketing pen computers running Pen Windows. The target is the consumer, and the hype
`says that the pen will largely replace the keyboard.
`
`Flashforward to 2001-2002: Is it going to happen all over again? It looks like it might. Microsoft is in the process of defining
`the Microsoft Tablet PC platform hardware specification, along with a pen-interface layer that will sit on top of Windows XP
`Professional. The initial target is corporate users, "knowledge workers with a productivity focus." Five big OEMs have signed
`up to build Tablet PC products. Microsoft is starting to crank up the hype engine, but so far the media is resisting.
`
`History
`
`In August 1999, when Microsoft announced ClearType, they also announced that they planned to create their own tablet “for
`computing, communicating and reading electronic books." To bolster the project, Microsoft brought in (among others) Chuck
`Thacker, a legendary computer innovator. While at Xerox PARC, Chuck was the chief designer on Alto, the first personal
`computer to use a bit-mapped display and mouse for user interface. Mr. Thacker is also the co-inventor of the Ethernet local
`area network. His current title at Microsoft is "Distinguished Engineer, Emerging Technologies Group." Clearly there's a
`heavy hitter at the core of this project!
`
`In June 2000, Bill Gates demonstrated the very first prototype of the Tablet PC during the unveiling of Microsoft's .Net
`strategy. However, as it was such an insignificant part of the overall presentation, it received essentially zero press coverage.
`
`
`
`
`
`Next, during his Comdex keynote in November 2000, Gates demonstrated an ID-enhanced
`prototype of the Tablet PC (beneath the dolled-up housing, the hardware was basically the
`same as it was in June). Gates positioned the product as "a full-function Microsoft Windows
`operating system-based PC incorporating the convenient and intuitive aspects of pencil and
`paper into the PC experience." What aggravated a lot of people in the pen computer
`business (including Pen Computing's editor Conrad Blickenstorfer--see his editorial in the
`March 2001 issue) was that Gates presented the Tablet PC as if it was a brand-new
`concept. It was as if the last 10 years of the pen computing business had never existed.
`
`Press and analyst reaction to Gates' Comdex demo was not very positive. Largely it boiled
`down to “been there, tried that, need a keyboard." In a column written for ZDNet news
`(extracted and summarized below), John G. Spooner offered the opinion that for the Tablet
`PC to be successful, it would have to offer substantially more than today‘s notebooks:
`
`Recentissues
`_
`PEI] [:[llflfllltlllfl
`
`"Hopefully the Tablet PC will offer a multi-modal user interface that combines input from
`voice recognition and handwriting recognition with the option for a keyboard and mouse. If the Tablet PC is the device that
`the "knowledge worker" will be carrying around in 2003, it must be significantly different from my IBM ThinkPad 570
`notebook. There is no reason for me to give up my ThinkPad for anything at all unless it‘s something that's significantly
`cheaper or significantly easier to use. If Microsoft nails the user interface on the Tablet PC, this device will take off and
`nobody will look back and wish they still had their old ThinkPad. You and I will give up our notebook PCs for Tablet PCs,
`which will be much easier to live with and will easily take penned, spoken or keyed-in commands. Anything less is doomed to
`failure" WinHEC 2001 Microsoft revealed a lot about the Tablet PC hardware in March at WinHEC 2001. WinHEC, the
`annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, is where Microsoft updates OEM hardware engineers and driver
`developers (more than 2,200 of them this year) on the strategies, roadmaps and technologies for future PCs. In his keynote
`at WinHEC, Bill Gates again showed a prototype of the Tablet PC. Most of the Tablet PC demo was focused on how easy it
`is to use ink in a new note-taking application that Microsoft will offer. Actually, the application, temporarily called “Microsoft
`Notebook, isn‘t new at all. It's an enhanced version of "lnkWriter", a program originally written by "Aha Software," a company
`that Microsoft bought outright in 1996. InkWriter was shrink-wrapped pen software that was enjoying modest sales success;
`when Microsoft bought the company, the product disappeared from the marketplace.
`
`After Bill Gates' keynote at WinHEC, Microsoft held a lunchtime press briefing on the Tablet PC. Attended by more than 75
`journalists, the briefing was the very first time the press has had an opportunity to ask questions about the Tablet PC. Alex
`Loeb, Microsoft‘s General Manager for the Tablet PC, hosted the briefing. On the podium were representatives from Compaq
`and Fujitsu, two of the five OEMs who have announced that they have signed up to build Tablet PCs (the others are Acer,
`Sony and Toshiba). Also on the podium were representatives from six technology vendors involved in the development of the
`Tablet PC prototype: FinePoint Innovations (pen-input subsystem), Flextronics (prototype design and assembly), Phoenix
`(legacy-free BIOS), Silicon Motion (video controller), Silver Cloud Manufacturing (anti-reflection LCD filter) and Transmeta
`(CPU)--more on each of these later.
`
`www.pencomputing.com/frames/tablet_pc.html
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`Pen Computing Magazine: A detailed look at Microsoft's Tablet PC project
`
`Again the press and analyst reaction was not very
`positive. In a story in PC Week, one corporate IT
`manager said that the Tablet PC was not at all
`compelling: "My company has several thousand
`laptops. We have found our staff to be quite productive
`with their laptops, so there is no reason to change." In
`the same story, an IT consultant was quoted as saying,
`"Handwriting recognition, which is simply not a
`compelling feature for us, does not have a good track
`record. It will take far more than this to make us think
`about giving up our laptops." Jerry Kaplan, the founder of Go and a pioneer of tablet
`computing, was quoted in a Business Week story as saying, "It's likely to be a
`compromised laptop and a compromised pen machine." David Coursey, executive editor of
`ZDNet's AnchorDesk, published what were probably the most damming comments.
`Extracted and summarized, his comments were as follows:
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`“Playing with the Tablet PC prototype [at WinHEC] was a depressing reminder of things
`I've seen before. The recognizer in the Tablet PC didn‘t come close to reading my
`.
`handwriting, even when I wrote characters that everyone sitting around the table could read. A general purpose, "pen-based"
`computer that can't read my handwriting is a violation of the social contract. The prototype I played with--admittedly an early
`one--wouldn‘t have convinced me to build the Tablet PC, but then I'm not five desperate PC hardware companies."
`
`AnchorDesk has a "TalkBack" message forum. Of the 150+ messages posted after David Coursey's two stories on the Tablet
`PC, about 35% were in favor of the Tablet PC and 65% were against. The main themes expressed in the messages were as
`follows:
`
`Typing is much faster than handwriting
`Everybody's handwriting is deteriorating because the keyboard dominates
`Handwriting recognition has to work on a pen tablet, othen/vise forget it!
`Pen tablets are fantastic in vertical applications, particularly healthcare
`A pen tablet must have voice recognition to be really useful
`
`After the press conference, there were two technical sessions on the Tablet PC at WinHEC. Alex Loeb gave a session on the
`Tablet PC strategy, and Chuck Thacker gave a session on the technical details of the Tablet PC prototype. The slides from
`both sessions were still on the Microsoft website as of the beginning of May (see www.microsoft. com/winhec/winhec2001).
`Most of the remainder of this article deals with information presented or discussed in those two sessions.
`
`Why now?
`
`One question that everyone asks is, "Why is Microsoft trying to create pen-based computers again, and why now?"
`Microsoft's answer is because technology allows it, i.e., because laptop hardware is finally ready for the product. Microsoft
`points to the significant improvements that have been made since 1992 in CPUs (lower power, higher performance), LCDs
`(lower power, higher resolution), batteries (lower weight, higher capacity), digitizers (lower power, higher performance),
`memory, wireless LAN network infrastructure, etc. Microsoft also points to improvement in handwriting recognition, speech
`recognition and font readability (ClearType), and promises a "new Ul designed for pen input and easy navigation."
`
`A cynic would say that the reason Microsoft is trying to create pen-based computers now is because the PC market is soft
`right now, and they're looking for every possible way of selling 03 licenses (as David Coursey implies in his comment about
`"five desperate PC hardware companies"). But as was pointed out earlier, Microsoft actually started the current Tablet PC
`project in 1999, long before the current downturn. A more rational reason is that Bill Gates truly believes that the Tablet PC is
`a sort of "holy grail," and he really has picked now as the time to try again just because laptop hardware is in fact much more
`ready than it was in 1992. So with that as a reference point, let's circle back around and take a deeper look at the Tablet PC.
`
`What is it?
`
`Fundamentally, the Tablet PC is a notebook (laptop) without a keyboard. It‘s not a WebPad, as some of the members of the
`press still seem to think, it's a full-scale PC with a rotating hard disk. If you take any of today's very thin and light, high-end
`notebooks, rip off the keyboard, flip over the screen and add a digitizer, you've got what is basically a Tablet PC (except for
`some minor details, such as not being legacy-free). If you take the Fujitsu Stylistic 3500 and substitute an active digitizer for
`the passive (resistive) digitizer, again you've got what is basically a Tablet PC.
`
`Microsoft is positioning the Tablet PC as "the evolution of the laptop." You have to admire Microsoft's ability to do product
`positioning. Whether you like them or not, they're capable of turning out some good marketing verbiage. Microsoft people at
`WinHEC often repeated the following phrases to describe the Tablet PC, almost in unison:
`
`- Combines the simplicity of paper with the power of the PC
`. Combines the rich features of a notebook with the simplicity of a pen
`. A natural form of computing
`- An adaptable, ergonomic form factor
`
`As noted earlier, the initial target market is corporate users, "knowledge workers with a productivity focus." Microsoft
`envisions the typical user as a "corporate corridor warrior," someone who spends a lot of time away from their office in
`meetings with other people. Note the distinction between "corridor warrior" and "road warrior." Microsoft isn‘t trying to replace
`the notebooks you see used in airports the world over; they‘re trying to replace the pads of paper you see used in meeting
`rooms the world over. There's a subtle difference. In Alex Loeb's WinHEC session, she explained all about how using a
`
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`Pen Computing Magazine: A detailed look at Microsoft's Tablet PC project
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`laptop in a meeting is "rude," about how it takes energy and focus to use, which decreases the user's eye contact with others
`at the meeting.
`
`For anyone who's been in the vertical pen tablet business anytime in the last 10 years (e.g., at Fujitsu), this is old news.
`Microsoft seemingly presents it as if it‘s brand new information. Actually, what's happening is that Microsoft is simply applying
`good marketing skills to the pen tablet. Relatively few vertical pen tablet companies articulate the message about laptop
`versus tablet usage very clearly. This is because either (a) it's such common knowledge in markets such as Sales Force
`Automation that it's just taken for granted, or (b) the company is selling pen tablets into vertical markets that don't involve a
`lot of face-to-face meetings, such as Utilities.
`
`Regarding whether Microsoft will eventually try to sell the Tablet PC to consumers, all they'll say is that they expect their
`OEMs and lSVs will expand the market focus beyond the original target. You can see from some of the things that Microsoft
`people say about the Tablet PC, however, that they're edging towards a more horizontal view. For example, Chuck Thacker
`observed in his session that "getting comfortable" with any device is the key to absorbing information from it. When he asked
`how many audience members printed a 1-3 page document rather than reading it on their PC screen, the majority of the
`audience held up their hands. Chuck argued that a tablet presents a more natural reading environment--you can hold it in
`your lap with your feet up on the coffee table, or you can comfortably read in bed with it. That's probably true, as long as
`you're not using the pen to do anything more than circle things or make minor annotations.
`
`Ink, not handwriting
`
`This leads directly to a key element of Microsoft's Tablet PC positioning -- they are significantly de-emphasizing handwriting
`recognition. The reason seems to be that they‘re afraid it won't work well enough. During the press briefing and the WinHEC
`sessions, Microsoft took great pains to emphasize the inherent value of ink. Microsoft people often repeated the following
`phrases, again almost in unison:
`
`A tablet makes ink rock
`Ink is the focus, not handwriting recognition
`Ink is a first-class citizen
`Ink as ink
`
`Charlton Lui's Tablet PC demo during Gates' WinHEC keynote focused almost
`entirely on the manipulation of ink. Only once or twice did he show actual
`recognition, and then it was post-processing ("re-purposing text" in Microsoft-
`speak) of existing handwritten text, which he already knew would be recognized
`with 100% accuracy. Some of Microsoft Notebook's ink-management capabilities
`that Charlton demonstrated included the following:
`
` .
`
`“Thkabw‘iH-t ihkf,
`I
`' g;
`:e. ”ax-:-r
`-
`-. .m.m r, M .
`—:|—lm.
`
`m
`
`
`
`Moving ink words as though they were text
`Searching blocks of handwritten ink for a specific word
`Bolding individual words and phrases of ink
`Scaling entire blocks of ink
`Delayed or background recognition [See "Think with Ink" screenimage]
`
`Microsoft's position on the value of ink is actually pretty reasonable. Consider the typical person who takes notes in a spiral-
`bound paper notebook during a meeting. They don't always type up the notes and format them into a Word document
`immediately after the meeting. Many times (more often than not), theyjust leave the notes in ink format. They can refer to
`them and use them as is. Similarly, when they annotate something or draw circles and arrows, it's useful in that form.
`Microsoft Notebook's capability of searching and manipulating ink makes it even more useful. Ink doesn't always have to be
`transformed into data.
`
`But ink usage alone is simply not enough to make a successful pen tablet. When asked directly about handwriting
`recognition, Alex Loeb said "Microsoft has state-of-the-art handwriting recognition, but it's still not perfect and it may not work
`for you. So the Tablet PC is not being presented as a handwriting recognition machine, but instead as a product where the
`emphasis is on ink."
`
`Microsoft's recognizer
`
`It's unfortunate that Microsoft is so nervous about handwriting recognition. The Tablet PC software will include a very good
`recognizer-probably the best one that's currently available anywhere. Let's take a closer look at its origins.
`
`Microsoft has had a small team of engineers working on handwriting recognition continuously since the early 19905. Their
`first product was the less-than-stellar MARS recognizer (Pen Services 1.0, 1991), followed by the improved GRECO
`recognizer (Pen Windows 2.0, 1995). Windows CE 1.0 shipped in 1996 in the US without any recognizer at all. In 1998,
`Windows CE 2.0 came with a recognizer, but it wasn‘t based on the Microsoft core product. Although Microsoft was working
`on a version for CE 2.0, it was not finished in time, and so they substituted ClC's Jot recognizer at the last minute.
`
`In September of 1999, Microsoft acquired the right to use the intellectual property (source code) of Calligrapher, without
`acquiring the product or the company outright - an indication that for once, Microsoft didn't buy something in order to kill a
`rival. The initial use of Calligrapher was in Windows CE 3.0 (released in 2000 as the "Pocket PC"). While CE 3.0‘s primary
`recognizer was the one that the recognizer team couldn't finish in time for CE 2.0, Calligrapher (renamed "Transcriber") was
`also included as an option.
`
`Next, Microsoft "blended" Calligrapher with the Microsoft core recognizer technology to form the basis of a new recognizer
`that will be used in the Tablet PC. It may seem hard to believe that handwriting recognizers (an esoteric technology if there
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`Pen Computing Magazine: A detailed look at Microsoft's Tablet PC project
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`ever was one!) from two completely different companies could be blended successfully, but in fact, it has been accomplished.
`The general subject is called "reco fusion" in academic papers on the subject.
`
`The first release of the new recognizer will be in the initial release of Windows XP. This will be the first recognizer for
`Windows released since GRECO in 1995. The hardware required to use the recognizer in the initial release of Windows XP
`will be a Wacom graphics tablet or equivalent. The interface to the recognizer, while different from that for Pen Windows, will
`be documented so third parties can replace the Microsoft recognizer with their own if desired.
`
`The bottom line is that the combination of the last six years of Microsoft core recognizer development blended with the well-
`accepted Calligrapher technology should yield a world-class handwriting recognizer for the Tablet PC.
`
`Software architecture
`
`The Tablet PC software platform is based on Windows XP Professional (only!). Microsoft has no plans to make any part of
`the Tablet PC software backwards compatible to any flavor of Windows 9x. The core of the software is an add-on layer that
`sits on top of XP. Since XP is currently scheduled to appear in retail stores on October 25, 2001, and the Tablet PC is a 2002
`product, the add-on layer will not be available with the initial release of XP. Microsoft says that the add-on layer will initially
`only be available to OEMs, but that this strategy will be re-evaluated after the first year, when upgrades start to become an
`Issue.
`
`
`
`The logic is that the user should initially get support for any custom or special hardware directly from the OEM. If the Tablet
`PC hardware becomes widespread and common, then Microsoft may include the add-on layer and hardware drivers for most
`existing products directly in the OS. This is similar to the way things work today. If you purchase a special piece of hardware
`such as a USB fingerprint reader, you generally must obtain a driver from the manufacturer of the reader. On the other hand,
`if you purchase a "generic" piece of hardware such as a network adapter, the driver is already included in Windows.
`
`If you've been around the pen business for a while, this architecture may sound suspiciously like Pen Services in Windows
`for Pen Computing. It is and it isn't. Pen Services was also a layer on top of Windows, but Pen Services was a "hack" while
`the Tablet PC layer uses standard Windows NT/2000 architecture. Pen Windows relied heavily on undocumented entry
`points into Windows 9x for its connection to the OS. The Tablet PC layer uses what's known as "Input Method Editor" (IME)
`architecture, which is the way all input devices of any kind get information into Windows NT/2000. As a result of Pen
`Services' back-door connection to the OS, there were places in Windows 9x where you just couldn't use the pen--for
`example, to handwrite a URL in Internet Explorer. According to Chuck Thacker, the Tablet PC's use of IME is "perfectly
`standar " and this kind of problem will not occur.
`
`This standardization could conceivably have an interesting side effect. Suppose that Microsoft doesn't "nail the User
`Interface," and in fact comes up with something that the market completely rejects. Since the interface to the OS is
`(supposedly) totally standard, it's theoretically possible for a third party to create an equivalent layer to replace the Microsoft
`offering. Whether this is likely to happen or not is debatable.
`
`The good news that results from using the standard Windows NT architecture is that "all Windows applications can be used
`with a pen on the Tablet PC." Both Alex Loeb and Chuck Thacker repeated this statement several times during their WinHEC
`sessions.
`
`
`
`Changes to the Windows XP core required by the Tablet PC were very few--the only
`things added were support for the pen, support for the hardware buttons on the
`tablet, and some enhancements to ACPI. The Tablet PC layer will include the
`handwriting recognizer, support for ink, pen applets required to configure and control
`the system, one or more on-screen keyboards, a gesture manager, a "text input
`processing" (TIP) module, and the user interface. Software to support speech
`recognition may also be added, but nothing more than a passing mention was made
`of this at the WinH EC conference. User interface Almost no information has been
`released on the details of the actual pen user interface (separate from the Microsoft
`Notebook application). Generally it is supposed to be fairly simple, utilizing basic
`click, hold and select functions. Gestures are used to perform various actions. For
`example, to do a right-click with the pen, the user makes a gesture and then selects
`"right-click" from a pop-up menu. It is not known if user-defined gestures will be available. When asked why the pen barrel
`button wasn't used to perform a right-click, as is the case on some vertical pen tablets, Chuck Thacker said, "We don't use
`the pen barrel button because people generally can't use it."
`
`Anyone who's used Pen Windows knows the feeling of frustration and even anger that can occur when you can't get the
`system to do what you want, either because recognition fails or because the pen doesn't act the way you think it should or
`seems erratic. The new Tablet PC pen user interface is described by Microsoft as "providing a graceful fallback when things
`fail, and allowing easy correction." It remains to be seen what this really means.
`
`About the prototype hardware
`
`Microsoft built the Tablet PC prototype as a "proof of concept." It's not a "reference design," i.e., it's not intended as rigid
`guidance or direction to the five OEMs. Microsoft built it because they needed some hardware on which they could test
`system and application software, test and optimize software-hardware interaction, work through major laptop-oriented
`hardware issues, explore the ergonomics of a pen tablet, and test usability and features with customers. Microsoft is not
`going into the hardware business--that's why they have OEMs. Why didn't Microsoft use the existing Fujitsu Stylistic 3400
`pen tablet, which is probably the best on the market, instead of inventing their own? Most likely because Microsoft didn't
`want to get too close to any one of the five OEMs, and because Chuck Thacker truly wanted to build a pen tablet from
`scratch (doing something yourself is how you really learn what's what!).
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`www.pencomputing.com/frames/tablet_pc.html
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`Pen Computing Magazine: A detailed look at Microsoft's Tablet PC project
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`As of the beginning of May, about 40 prototypes have been built. According to Chuck Thacker, Microsoft plans to build a total
`of about 300. The prototype is just that, a prototype. It‘s not really a practical product. For example, there's no external
`access to the battery or the hard disk, no internal modem and no DRAM expansion capability. Most notebooks today have all
`of these features and more. The prototype is simply a demonstration of what's possible today, with emphasis on making it as
`thin as possible, to help people get the concept.
`
`Building the prototype
`
`,,,.,_,_u,.,,
`
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`
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`
`According to Alex Loeb, the prototype started with a schematic drawn by Chuck
`Thacker. Next, Microsoft hired Flextronics, the second-largest contract manufacturer in
`the US, to build the prototypes. This entailed doing the mechanical design, laying out
`the PCB, doing heat analyses, etc.--all the things you have to do to build a complex
`product from scratch. Flextronics is, by the way, the company that builds most of the
`--
`_-...-_-.
`fling“, Handspring Visor PDAs; Solectron, the #1 contract manufacturer in the US, builds the
`--Ifin
`rest of them.
`
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`
`
`
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`
` Heat is always a very difficult part of the design of a tablet, since there's only one heat-
`l'EEIIL' '--_l .I
`dissipation surface (the back). According to a rep from Flextronics, one of the more
`interesting specs that Microsoft gave Flextronics on the Tablet PC was that "it should be
`less hot than a cat on your lap." It is not known if Flextronics made any thermocouple-
`based measurements of live animals on actual humans. In any case, this is probably
`one reason for the very strong emphasis on low power consumption that is evidenced throughout the design of the
`prototype.
`
`-' "
`.=-.-....-
`
`The Tablet PC is one of the few products where Microsoft actually designed and built a hardware prototype themselves,
`rather than relying on their OEMs. It was particularly amusing listening to Chuck Thacker describe in his WinHEC session
`how hard it was to actually make it work. Microsoft usually doesn't have to implement the specs they define; that's up to the
`OEMs. Chuck Thacker said the main problem was that "power management is a nightmare" (welcome to the real world, Mr.
`Thackerl). Examples of specific problems that Thacker said he encountered include the following:
`
`. Power states that should work don't
`. Going from the power off state to the fully active state after insertion of a PC Card causes an "interrupt storm" from
`the PC Card controller
`It isn't possible to independently power down the USB, audio and IEEE 1394 controllers
`.
`. Switching between portrait mode and landscape mode can be difficult
`
`Thacker believes that a power reduction of up to 1.5 watts can be achieved if all of the power management problems in the
`Tablet PC prototype are solved.
`
`Pen-input subsystem
`
`As mentioned earlier in this article, six key technology vendors were represented at the press briefing at WinHEC. We've
`already covered Flextronics' contribution; to gain a better understanding of the design philosophy of the Tablet PC, it's worth
`taking a look at the contribution of each of the other five companies. First is the provider of the pen-input subsystem,
`FinePoint Innovations (formerly part of Mutoh America, and Kurta before that). FinePoint makes an active RF digitizer.
`"Active RF" means that the pen contains a miniature RF transmitter (operating at 460 KHz) that transmits through the LCD to
`a sensor grid (antenna) positioned behind the LCD. A controller chip takes samples of the pen's position 133 times a second.
`This compares very favorably with the typical 30-40 position samples per second taken by a mouse. The result is very fast,
`very smooth ink.
`
`Another key characteristic of an active RF digitizer is that the pen can hover over the screen and the cursor tracks it, just like
`moving a mouse without clicking. The ability to hover (also called "proximity sensing") is becoming essential as Windows
`grows more complex. Windows XP makes more use of hovering to provide information to the user than any previous version
`of Windows. For example, if you hover over a thumbnail image in XP, you get an entire panel of information about the image,
`notjust the file name.
`
`The primary alternative to an active RF digitizer is a resistive (also called "passive") digitizer. This is what is used on all PDAs
`and on many vertical pen tablets. Compared to an active RF digitizer, a resistive digitizer has a lower sample rate, lower
`resolution, less accuracy and no hovering. For these reasons, Microsoft has declared that all Tablet PCs must use an active
`digitizer with a sample rate of at least 100 samples per second.
`
`Legacy-free BIOS
`
`Phoenix's primary contribution to the Tablet PC prototype is the legacy-free BIOS. Today's current notebooks are not legacy-
`free--they typically have a serial port, a parallel port and a PS/2 mouse/keyboard port, all legacy devices supported by the
`BIOS. Today's typical notebook BIOS, represented by Phoenix's NoteBlOS 4.0 product (generically, "Platformware," to use
`Phoenix's term), can support booting from USB floppies, CD-ROMs, Zip disks and hard disks. However, a notebook BIOS
`always expects the notebook to have an internal keyboard, so there's no support for a USB keyboard at boot. That was one
`of the changes that Microsoft required in the Tablet PC‘s legacy-free BIOS. Other changes include significantly reducing the
`power-on self test (POST) time to 6 seconds, reducing the resume time to under 2 seconds (that's almost instant-on!),
`tweaking the power management, adding support for the pen (e.g., in the BIOS setup program), and removing support for all
`legacy hardware devices.
`
`Low-power CPU
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`Pen Computing Magazine: A detailed look at Microsoft's Tablet PC project
`
`The Tablet PC prototype uses a 600 MHz Crusoe TM5600 CPU from Transmeta. Transmeta has been in the news a lot
`lately, with somewhat mixed results. Their claim to fame is "x86 Code-Morphing software" (dynamic binary code translation),
`which delivers lower power consumption than Intel with roughly the same horsepower. Whether the claim will hold up over
`time is unclear, since Intel has started fighting back aggressively with its newest ultra-Iow-power Mobile Pentium III. Certainly
`the actual power consumption numbers on the TM5600 spec sheet look very good indeed:
`
`- 1.0 W typical while running office productivity applications
`- 0.1 W when idle between keystrokes
`. 2.0 W typical while running CPU-intensive applications such as DVD movies
`
`Actually there‘s nothing in the Tablet PC architecture that requires the Transmeta CPU; an Intel CPU (or in fact any x86-
`compatible CPU from AMD, Via or National) would workjust as well. Jerry Ascierto from EE Times remarked on the curious
`lack of any Intel representation at the Tablet PC press briefing. Two technical analysts were quoted in his story as saying
`they expected initial Tablet PC designs (from the five OEMs) to be powered by 800-MHz—and-above Mobile Intel Pentium III
`chips rather than by Transmeta chips. John G. Spooner and Ian Fried from ZDNet reported that Intel is in fact working with
`several PC makers to create its own "Tablet PC Reference Specification" based on the ultra-Iow-power mobile Pentium III
`chip (apparently completely separate from Microsoft's effort). Hmmmm...
`
`Low-power video controller
`
`The Tablet PC uses a Silicon Motion LyanM+ video controller. Silicon Motion, founded in 1996 and headquartered in Silicon
`Valley, is a relative newcomer in the video controller business. While they have some notebook design wins (in some HP,
`NEC, Panasonic and OEM-branded Taiwanese notebooks), they are dwarfed by ATI and NVIDIA. On the other hand, the two
`major players are engaged in a race for dominance in 3D performance in their mobile video controllers, and the Tablet PC
`doesn‘t even really need 3D. So there's some logic to Microsoft's selection of Silicon Motion for the Tablet PC.
`
`Silicon Motion's claim to fame is low power consumption. A few years ago, when mobile CPUs were consuming 10+ watts,
`the video controller was a small percentage of the total system power consumption. Now that mobile CPUs are in the 1-2W
`range, the video controller has become a much larger percentage of total system power consumption. To achieve very low
`power consumption, the LyanM+ uses dynamic clock