KoalaPad: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:05, 28 September 2003

Revision as of 14:11, 28 September 2003

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The '''Koala Pad''' is a [[graphics tablet]] which was produced for most of the early 8bit machines, including the [[Apple II]], [[TRS-80 Color Computer]], [[Commodore 64]] and [[Atari 8008-bit family]]. Originally designed by Dr. David Thornburg as a low-cost drawing tool for schools, the Koala Pad was very popular with home users as well.

The pad itself was about 5 inches square, mounted on a slightly inclined base with the back of the pad higher than the front. At the top, "behind" the pad, were two buttons. The pad hooked into the computer using joystick inputs, which meant that it had fairly low resolution and tended to jostle the cursor as it was moved.

One version was for the Atari 400 and 800 computers, and includes a program cartridge entitled 'Koala Paint'. The Koala Pad hooks into one of the Atari joystick ports and with Koala Paint allows you to draw on the screen in any one of four colors. There are two buttons on the Pad, one of which lifts the stylus off of the pad and stops or starts the drawing.

The tablet shipped with a simple graphics program, '''Koala Painter''' (Koala Paint on the Atari). One unique feature of the program was that it held two pictures in memory, allowing the user to flip from one to the other and copy and paste between the two. The buttons tended to be somewhat frustrating to use, as the user had to "reach around" the stylus to push the buttons in order to start or stop drawing. A similar tablet from Atari addressed this with a built-in button, which some enterprising users adapted for use with their Koala Pad.

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