Touch-screen and X Window System technology have been brought together in a new hardware and software Xtouch package from by Trident Systems Inc, Fairfax, Virginia. The software allows developers to write touch-screen applications for X Window running under Unix, VMS or SunOS – in addition programs written for mouse input will run as touch-screen applications, and mouse and touch-screen operations can be accepted concurrently. The touch-screen itself gives users the same capability for dragging and activating windows and icons as they would have if using a mouse. It has a pressure-sensing ability with user-defined thresholds, sensitive enough to distinguish between the different operations. The screen is made of transparent glass and has no conductive surface in between the user and the images on the display – the glass carries inaudible acoustic waves on its surface – and as such is reckoned to be particularly applicable for use in rugged environments like factories, and for public information systems or vending machines. A 13 touch-screen and software starts at $1,095, a 19 version is $1,300.
