LGR Oddware: The $400 CrossPad Tablet from 1998

A look back at the odd late 90s CrossPad from A.T. Cross and IBM! An electronic notepad letting you draw on normal paper, automatically digitizing drawings and text, and storing them in memory for transfer to a PC over serial! A remarkable yet ill-fated oddity indeed.

● LGR links:

● Archive of the IBM Ink Manager CD-ROM:

● All background music licensed from:

00:00 An Oddware Introduction
00:45 CrossPad history
05:04 Critical reception and lawsuit
08:12 Unboxing the pad, feature overview
14:42 Software setup with Windows 95
17:27 Basic operation and digitization
21:09 Manipulating INK drawings, text
26:30 Summary (Cross Examination? ha)

#LGR #Retro #Computer

[hewandersaround]

I feel a bit sorry for them in the sense that this was clearly a pretty good idea, but probably just too early (and too expensive by far) to really take off. It was a surprisingly forward-thinking product for a company like that to come out with.

[ChrisParrishOutdoors]

I'm Chris and Liz is my wife(she's in the comments as well). We're so thrilled you got it working! I'm sorry it was corroded, as the note mentioned it was rescued from my office disposal so who knows how long it had been sitting before I found. We're so glad you gave it new life and that's pretty cool 😎

[Francoberry]

This is one of those rare cases where a 90s gadget is actually extremely competent and does exactly what it intends to do.

I'm seriously impressed. You could've said this came out last week and I'd still find it impressive. The way it works with regular paper and doesn't even need you to put 1 sheet on at a time is really cool.

[glitchedoom]

Cool Crab is my favorite recurring LGR guest.

[majoryoshi]

If this were being sold in 2023 I’d pick it up in a heartbeat. So many of my classes don’t allow taking notes on laptops and this would be a good solution for digitizing it after class so I can refer to them easier

[lizb]

Hey that's from me! Glad you were able to get it working! We thought it was the most weird and cool piece of tech. So fun seeing it in a video, especially the previous users writings!

[christianharper]

It was nice seeing the Crosspad. I (as a software developer) had purchased one (at FULL price) and it was good for note-taking, but really worked well when diagramming new features and developing user stories for development. The searchable "Links" came in very handy for code reviews. It did have a purpose, and worked very well for me, saving quite a bit of time.

[hyphens]

Everyone keeps saying this was amazing for its time. I would argue this is still amazing even in current time.

[Brazbit]

My dad is a bit of a semi-pro artist and had wanted to get into computers back in the 60s so anything that combined art and computers he would give a try. He had owned a traditional digitizing tablet before but hated that the only visual feedback was on the screen. So, when he saw an ad for the Cross Pad he immediately ordered one thinking that it would have the fidelity of a primarily art tablet but with the immediate feedback of the ink on the page. He was picturing something akin to a Cintique, but with paper in place of the display, this was the 90s after all.
He was immediately disappointed by the fact that the drawings did not show on screen in real time, and when you transferred a drawing over it had serious jaggy lines and the lack of pressure sensitivity meant that line width was not accounted for. He also had thought you could use any pen so toss in the lack of color and the ability to use different pens with different tips and his dreams were shattered.
The tablet sat mostly unused, and when he did use it he would forget that he had to use the correct pen and he made an absolute mess of the thing when he would confuse it with his other one and try using it without paper installed. It looked like a middle-school desk covered in grafitti.
He had set it up himself and, while he didn't forbid me from using it he was constantly worried about the "special paper" and the ink in the special pen... on the occasion he remembered either. Since I did not set it up, and he lost the manuals almost immediately, I only just found out in this video that the tablet was not a hard-wired device and it required batteries. I think he would have enjoyed it much more if he had realized he did not have to be tethered to the computer to use it and we wouldn't have thought he broke it when the batteries must have died in the tablet. We even went as far as replacing the pen, which we knew took batteries. I also never found the spare ink storage, that would have eased his mind about the ever so precious ink.
All in all, I think he successfully made maybe 3-4 drawings using the tablet, none of which were ever taken into another program for refinement. I had no idea at the time that this was such an expensive bust. Not his most expensive, or oddest piece of hardware, but it is higher up the list than I ever imagined.

[rhyleymaster]

Radio guy here, willing to bet that the crosspad works by tracking where the pen is transmitting from using 2 or 3 antennas on the pad itself. The receiving antennas are performing angle of arrival (AoA) calculations on the pens signal when it's transmitting, giving us 3 angles the text could have came from. The point where these angles intersect (the 'fix') is calculated, giving us a position that can be put into a set of coordinates. Each coordinate is recorded at a fixed rate (the sample rate, think something like a framerate), giving you the path of the pen.

That's my theory of how it works anyways.

[flemmingpedersen]

This seems like it would have been every pupil's best friend back then: Being able to take notes and have them all on the computer come exam time... They chose the wrong target group.

[EeveeFromAlmia]

I’m currently a uni student; I’ve seen so many people use remarkable or handwriting on their iPads. This thing was just ahead of its time.

[BuildItnow]

Im really digging in the indepth techtails at the start of most oddware episodes

[plot]

Now that seems super advanced for the time period.

Massively cool!

[kutannopapa]

I was a tech journalist in Tokyo back then and was so excited to have one of these that I brought it to every press conference or interview for a certain period. The first and foremost drawback was that the tip of the pen had an mechanical switch and it always “sink” by 1 to 1.5 mm travel, accompanied with annoying click sounds as you try to start writing something on paper. The price was reasonable for the kind of professions (imagine computer prices at that time) and I wish it could continue its life and fix those issues bit by bit.

[BrandonNedwek]

Oh man I remember seeing these at CompUSA at the time and wanting one so badly (for all those meeting notes I was taking when I was 13).

[MTFMuffins]

I worked for cross for several years, 2008-11. I worked in the HQ in lincoln ri and then ran a store in boston! this was before my time but i remember it being advertised when I was in college and wanted it so bad! I still love the idea, as an artist who draws and sells original sketches, this would have been a great way to draw and save my work simultaneously! nowadays there are better options out there, so in the past it remains. FYI, cross never got over that lawsuit. When i was there they hired this asshole CEO who got paid a lot of money to move all physical production to china while simultaneously carving up the sub departments and selling them off to competitors. by the time the great recession killed my store the company was a pretty toxic place to work. Still, I loved their pens and pencils and their rollerballs were the best in the business IMHO.

[Jim-Jam]

This makes me think it’s be awesome to so a video on what a 90s businessmen tech setup would look like. Wall Street style. Suit included.

[tilmatomo]

Me and a friend went halfsies on I think it was the smaller one back around 1999 or 2000. She took notes in the college classes we took together and emailed them to me because my handwriting was horrible. It was an impressive device given the rough state of OCR on scanners. Can't remember how much it cost though, we both worked for Circuit City at the time and got stuff like that at cost.

[SM-rnxy]

This is amazing for the period. Wacom tablets might have already existed but this is something you could use in a meeting and not look like a total dork. Also, I assume the pen would have felt just like a normal one and you can see what you have written, just like a normal pen. Surprised it didn't get more success.