Communication Intelligence Corp of Redwood Shores, California has annnounced that its PenDOS pen operating environment for MS-DOS systems is now fully compatible with the PenBIOS digitiser interface from Phoenix Technologies Ltd of Norwood, Massachusetts. This means that PenDOS will now run on all pen computing hardware systems using Phoenix’s PenBIOS, so enabling the two companies’ hardware manufacturing customers to bring pen-based computing products to market more quickly and cost effectively. The PenBIOS interface, Phoenix says, insulates both operating system and end-user from specific hardware implementation requirements. This relieves operating system vendors from the burden of writing different drivers for each different digitiser devices. It enables multiple operating environments, including PenDOS, to communicate with a variety of pen computing hardware systems – and, according to Phoenix, multiple operating environments and systems to run seamlessly, on a single pen computer. Phoenix supports all major digitiser vendors including Wacom Inc, Scriptel Corp, Logitech Inc, Calcomp Inc, Kurta Corp and MicroTouch Inc. It says it will include PenDOS, along with Windows for Pen Computing and PenPoint, on its multi-mode Pen Leader hardware reference design – its integrated pen systems development kit for hardware manufacturers.
