Has this ever happened to you? Someone says to you, “Make a note of this.” So you whip out your smartphone, open a file, and start your fingers whizzing over the virtual keyboard or start writing on the screen with a stylus to input the information. However, if you are not a millennial, you would more likely grab a piece of paper, whip out your ballpoint pen, and start making notes in dark, indelible blue or black ink.
Even if you are a millennial, chances are you nevertheless walk about with one or more ballpoint pens, simply because they are handy, apparently simple, and cheap.
The ballpoint pen has been available since the early 1940s. But to get them to that stage took research, development, and imagination over more than a half-century. Far from being simple and obvious, the design, engineering, and marketing of ballpoint pens represent a high point in human development.
This is why I strongly believe that the “humble” ballpoint pen deserves a place of honor on the list of what I like to call “extraordinary ordinary things.“
Three Steps to the Ballpoint Pen
Mankind has been writing with ink on paper or parchment for centuries. This self-evident means of encoding information and ideas, then passing them on to others, has nevertheless gone through three significant incarnations.
In its first incarnation, writing with ink was done by dipping the tip of a writing instrument (quill) into an ink container (ink well), then carefully moving the inked quill (usually a bird feather) to the paper for writing. The first known examples of quill and ink writing date back to mankind’s earliest civilizations.
The second incarnation sprang into existence with the invention of the fountain pen. Here, the ink well and the writing tip (nib) were engineered into a single instrument. The advantages of this arrangement over the quill and inkpot are obvious. The first descriptions of what might be considered prototype fountain pens date back several centuries. However, the first truly practical fountain pen made its appearance in the 19th century.
The third incarnation was the ballpoint pen, which was conceived to address the disadvantages of fountain pens: notably leaks, worn out or broken nibs, and smudging. The first attempts to produce a reliable ballpoint pen occurred in the late 1800s, i.e. shortly after the introduction of the fountain pen. However; success had to wait until post-WWII, largely because the tools, materials, and technologies needed to build it simply were not available.
How a Ballpoint Pen Works
There are several types of ballpoint pens. Some are specifically designed for specific purposes. But by far the vast majority of ballpoint pens are designed for the average person to use in ordinary situations.
Specialized or ordinary, all ballpoint pens operate on the same basic principles.
- Instead of a rigid applicator (such as a quill or nib), it uses a small rotating ball made of brass, steel, or tungsten carbide to dispense ink as it rolls across a sheet of paper or another suitable surface.
- The ink is thick (almost like a paste), fast-drying, and clings to the surface to which it is applied virtually instantaneously—a great advantage over the more liquid, slow-drying inks used with quills and fountain pens.
The key is the ball at the dispensing end of the pen. The ball acts as:
- A cap that keeps the ink from drying inside the barrel of the pen
- A mechanism for getting the ink onto the writing surface
The ball at the writing end of the instrument is encased in a socket. Although tightly fitted, the ball nevertheless has sufficient room to roll around. Thus, as the pen moves across the writing surface, the ball rolls. Simultaneously, gravity forces ink in the reservoir onto the top of the ball, which the turning ball then applies to the writing surface.
Both the quill and fountain pen used a dark, watery ink to be transferred to the writing surface. Use of a watery ink was the source of numerous problems. For example:
- The ink flowed unevenly, limiting the precision with which marks could be made on the writing surface.
- The ink was slow to dry, requiring careful handling or blotting of the writing surface before it could be moved.
- With fountain pens, the ink was exposed to the air while it was flowing through the pen. This caused the pen to clog, thus requiring meticulous cleaning to get the pen working again.
Ballpoint pen ink is normally a paste containing around 25–40 percent dye. The dye is suspended in a solvent. The most common of the solvents are benzyl alcohol or phenoxyethanol, which mix with the dyes to create a smooth paste that dries quickly. The dyes used in blue and black ballpoint pens are basic dyes based on triaryl methane and acid dyes derived from diazo compounds or phthalocyanine. Common dyes used in blue and black inks are Prussian blue, Victoria blue, methyl violet, crystal violet, and phthalocyanine blue. The dye eosin is commonly used for red ink.
The inks are resistant to water after drying but can be defaced by certain solvents such as acetone and various alcohols.
The Basic Components
Although designs and construction vary between brands, the basic components of all ballpoint pens are universal. Standard components include: 1) a freely rotating ball for distributing the ink, 2), a socket holding the ball in place, 3) a self-contained ink reservoir for supplying ink to the ball.
In disposable ballpoint pens, narrow plastic tubes contain the ink, which is compelled downward to the ball by gravity. Brass, steel, or tungsten carbide metals are used to manufacture the ball bearing-like points, then housed in a brass socket.
The function of these components can be compared with the mechanisms of roll-on antiperspirants, which represent the same technology but on a rather larger scale. That is, the rotating ball delivers the ink to the writing surface while acting as a buffer between the ink in the reservoir and the air outside, preventing the quick-drying ink from drying inside the reservoir.
A Brief History of the Ballpoint Pen
Although they did not become common until about the middle of the 20th century (late 1940s, early 1950s), the concept of using a ball within a writing instrument dates back to the late 1800s.
The first United States patent for a ballpoint pen was issued on October 30, 1888, to American inventor John J. Loud, who was seeking to create an instrument able to write “on rough surfaces such as wood, coarse wrapping paper, and other articles.” Loud’s pen consisted of a small rotating steel ball encased in a socket. He only partially achieved his objective. The instrument could indeed make marks on rough surfaces; however, it was too crude to permit legible writing of letters and words. Finding no commercial outlet for the instrument, Loud eventually allowed the patent to expire.
Attempts to develop and manufacture a reliable, economical ballpoint pen continued in the United States and elsewhere in the world. However, they were continually stymied by inherent design and manufacturing problems, which would be solved only in the mid-20th century by improved manufacturing procedures and chemical experiments leading to better flowing, more reliable inks.
Speakers of British English (as opposed to American English) are fond of calling a ballpoint pen a “biro.” There is a good historical reason for this. The first commercially viable ballpoint pen was conceived and marketed by a certain László Bíró.
László Bíró (1899–1988) was a Hungarian newspaper editor. He had become seriously frustrated by the amount of time being wasted filling up fountain pens and cleaning up smudges on the sheets of paper where the pens were being used. Then one day he noticed that inks used for printing newspapers dried quickly, leaving the paper on which it was used dry and smudge-free. He therefore set about creating a pen that would use the same kind of quick-drying, smudge-avoiding ink. His work was considerably helped by collaboration with his brother György, an accomplished chemist. Together the Biro brothers successfully coupled a viscous ink with a ball-socket mechanism that prevented the paste-like ink from drying inside the reservoir while still allowing it to smoothly flow out from the pen onto paper. A British patent for the invention was filed on June 15, 1938.
However, developing the patent into a commercial product was far from smooth sailing. Then living in Germany, in 1941 the Bíró brothers, along with their friend Juan Jorge Meyne, fled Europe to Argentina to escape the war. There they formed the Bíró Pens of Argentina Company and in 1943 applied for a new patent.
Their revolutionary new type of pen was first sold in Argentina under the name “Birome” (an abbreviated combination of the names Biro and Meyne), which is what it is still called in Argentina today. In many other countries, notably the United Kingdom, the appellation for the device was shortened and made generic as simply a “biro.”
Following the Second World War, many other companies began producing their own commercially viable ballpoint pens.
For example, the Eversharp Company, a maker of mechanical pencils, teamed up with the Eberhard Faber Company, a pencil manufacturer, to license the rights from Birome to sell their product in the United States.
Recognizing the commercial potential of the ballpoint pen, in 1945 American entrepreneur Milton Reynolds founded the Reynolds International Pen Company. However, instead of licensing the right to produce Biromes, Reynolds designed and received a U.S. patent for their own version of the instrument. On October 29, 1945, the Reynolds Rocket debuted at Gimbels, a leading department store in New York City, and sold for $12.50, the equivalent of nearly $200 today. The eye-watering price notwithstanding, several thousand Reynolds Rockets were sold within the first week.
Despite sensational launches, neither the Reynolds Rocket nor another ballpoint pen introduced in the U.S. shortly thereafter sufficiently met market expectations. Sales peaked in 1946, then began to decline. By the early 1950s, sales had dropped so low that Reynolds International Pen Company was shut down and liquidated.
Addressing concerns about ink reliability, the Paper Mate company pioneered new ink formulas which it advertised as “banker-approved.” In 1954, Parker Pens introduced the Jotter, which offered enhanced features and technology such as the use of tungsten-carbide textured ball bearings for smoother, more reliable writing. In its inaugural year, several million Jotter pens were sold at prices ranging from $3-9, i.e. considerably cheaper than the $12.50 price of the Reynolds Rocket a decade earlier. Since then, prices of ballpoint pens have continued to fall, such that today the cost of buying the widely sold models is counted in pennies, rather than dollars.
French entrepreneur Marcel Bich also introduced a ballpoint pen into the American market in the 1950s, licensed from Bíró and based on the Argentine designs. The brand name of the product was shortened to Bic in 1953, which became the generic name for a ballpoint pen in French (bic = ballpoint). Bic pens struggled until the company launched its “Writes The First Time, Every Time!” advertising campaign in the 1960s, reassuring the public that this was the only ballpoint that truly lived up to expectations.
The writing tip of some ballpoint pens is retractable so you can safely carry the pen in your pocket without marking the shirt. Bic pens and those of many competitive brands are not retractable, so you have to manually put the cover on before putting it into your pocket.
Types of Ballpoint Pens
Ballpoint pens are available in both refillable and disposable models.
Refillable models allow for the entire internal ink reservoir, including the ballpoint and socket, to be replaced. Refillable models are generally used for special purposes (such as producing graphic artwork), not simply jotting down notes. As such, their inner workings are generally more complex than in the simpler disposable models together with more costly materials, hence their considerably higher prices.
The disposable models are familiar to most of us. Because they are so cheap, you use one until it runs out of ink or otherwise stops working, then throw it away and replace it with another one
Disposable ballpoint pens generally have a cap to cover the tip when it is not being used. Slightly more upmarket models may have a mechanism (usually a spring or screw) for extending and retracting the tip rather than just a simple cover.
Roller ballpoint pens (roller pens) employ the same ballpoint mechanism but have certain other characteristics that make them distinct. For example:
- It uses water-based inks rather than thicker oil-based ones. Water-based inks provide more fluid ink flow for easier writing.
- It produces a finer line than a ballpoint pen.
- Its liquid ink puts down a greater amount of ink on the paper than a ballpoint pen (3–4 times more), thus producing a much more vivid line than a ballpoint.
However, rollerball pens also have significant drawbacks. Because of the more liquid ink, they will leave blots (blotches) if held stationary against the writing surface. Moreover, water-based inks remain wet longer when freshly applied, making anything written by them prone to smearing. Thus, roller ballpoints are reserved essentially for special purposes and employed by people skilled in their use.
Some ballpoint pens use a hybrid ink formulation whose viscosity is lower than that of standard ballpoint ink but greater than rollerball ink. Such pens are particularly favored by lefthanded people. Why? Because English and many other languages are written left to right, which is unnatural for lefthanders. The hybrid ink dries faster than the ink of a standard ballpoint, thus helping lefthand writers prevent unsightly smudges.
Because ballpoint pens depend on gravity to coat the ball with ink, most models cannot be used for writing upside-down. However, the Fischer Space Pen is a notable exception. Developed by the Fischer Company in the United States, Space Pens combine a more viscous ink with a pressurized ink reservoir that forces the ink toward the point. Unlike standard ballpoints, the rear end of the Space Pen’s pressurized reservoir is sealed, eliminating evaporation and leakage, crucial for allowing the pen to write upside-down in zero gravity, such as by astronauts on the International Space Station.
Ballpoint pens with erasable ink are also available. The ink formulas of erasable ballpoints have properties similar to rubber cement, allowing the ink to be rubbed clean from the writing surface before completely drying. Erasable ink is much thicker than standard ballpoint inks, requiring a pressurized cartridge to facilitate ink flow, meaning that these models can also be used for writing upside down.
Multipens contain reservoirs of different colors (usually a maximum of four) in the same instrument. To change color, you simply retract the current color, and then click to put the new color into place.
Ballpoint Pen in Graphic Arts
You might find it difficult to conceive of the humble ballpoint pen playing a significant role in the lofty world of fine art. And in large measure, you would be right, but not entirely. Certain painters and graphic artists have found the ballpoint to be useful, if not indispensable, to their ambitions.
Low cost and easy portability are cited by practitioners as qualities that make this humble writing instrument a convenient alternative art supply. Some artists use the ballpoint pen together with other media in their works; however, other artists use them as their sole medium of choice.
Why? Because ballpoint pens in pen-and-ink illustrations can be used to achieve effects generally not associated with a writing instrument, such as stippling and cross-hatching to create half-tones, or to give the illusion of form and volume. Artists whose interests necessitate precision line work will often turn to ballpoint pens because they can produce sharp lines not easily achieved using a brush. Finely applied, the resulting imagery has been mistaken for airbrushed artwork and photography, causing reactions of disbelief when the truth is made known.
Producing artwork with ballpoint pens continues to attract the interest of contemporary artists, with some of them being recognized for their technical proficiency, imagination, and innovation in their use. Here are just a few contemporary artists who have gained recognition for their specific and imaginative use of ballpoint pens.
- Claudio Ethos. This Brazilian street artist often sketches his concepts in ballpoint pen before spray-painting the images onto walls or canvas.
- Serhiy Kolyada. This Ukrainian artist produces his politically inspired works with black-ink ballpoint pens, sometimes augmented by other mediums to add color.
- Il Lee. This Korean artist has been creating large-scale ballpoint-only abstract artwork on paper since the early 1980s. He also creates artwork in a similar vein using ballpoints or acrylic paint on canvas.
- Lennie Mace. This American artist creates imaginative artwork of varying content and complexity applied to unconventional surfaces including wood and denim. Mace coined the term “PENtings” in reference to the very particular way he uses ballpoint pens.
- Shane McAdams. This American artist has become known for his abstract “pen blow” creations which entail removing the pen’s ball and blowing ink to flow out as if blowing through a straw.
For more about ballpoint pen artwork, here is a short video from Insider Art featuring Nigerian artist Oscar Ukonu.
Ballpoint Pen in Poetry
Some poets have considered the ballpoint pen to be almost like an extension of their own arm. Therefore, it is not surprising that some of them have penned verses about this intimately indispensable tool of their art. Here is one of my favorites.
Ode to a Ballpoint Pen What a relief to set aside my mechanical pencil and write with you, O Ballpoint Pen found at the bottom of my pen box. On your side is engraved "Samy's Camera." Did I walk out with you by accident? or was it on purpose, beguiled by your sleek, cool body as you nestled into my hand and I clasped you tight like my boyfriend in a steamy nightclub dancing slow to Moon River. Was I writing a check for a roll of Kodak film, ASA 400? Or was it more recent? Purchasing a digital mini-camera to carry in my purse? Before cellphones took selfies so flawlessly that I tucked my Sony into the dresser drawer behind my underwear. It lies abandoned soon to be joined by all my mechanical pencils. You, my Pen, are my reliable companion who will record lists for me: To Do lists Shopping lists Birthday lists Laundry lists. You will record why my lover doesn't want me anymore, but I will tear up that scrap of paper as soon as the ink has dried like blood, that heartless man, unworthy of the ink I waste on him. O beautiful Pen, sleek as the fur on a cat, smooth as a gin and tonic, solid as his hand on my breast. for merely. I hereby relinquish my mechanical pencil, whose lead keeps shattering. But you, dear Ballpoint Pen, I can press hard. And how much more beautiful with you are the curves of my words. —Kitty Kroger
Fun Facts about Ballpoint Pens
- Famed Italian scientist Galileo Galilei developed a draft design an invention similar to a ballpoint pen in the early 1600s.
- A typical ballpoint pen has a lifespan of about 50,000 words.
- The design of the Bic Cristal, a popular disposable ballpoint pen, is recognized in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
- Ballpoint pens can be filled with ink of a number of different colors. Unsurprisingly, the top two colors preferred by users are blue and black, followed by red and green.
- Because ballpoint pens are produced in numerous shapes and sizes, they have become sought after as collector items.
- The largest ballpoint pen in the world was created in 2011. It stands 5.5 meters high and weighs 37 kilograms and is fully functional.
- Ballpoint pens became very popular with pilots during World War II because, unlike other pens, they didn’t leak at high altitudes.
- A regular ballpoint pen can draw a line about 2 kilometers long before running out of ink. This is more than six times longer than the height of the Eiffel Tower.
- To test a new pen (ballpoint or otherwise), an estimated 95 percent of people will write their name with it.
- · While the ballpoint pen appears to be quite simple, the metallurgical expertise to produce steel needed for fabricating the ball is actually quite advanced. As one writer put it, “There are many countries which have developed nuclear weapons or launched satellites into space that simply can’t make a ballpoint pen.”
- China produces approx. 40 billion ballpoint pens a year, accounting for more than 80 percent of the world’s annual ballpoint pen supply.
- Have you ever noticed the tiny hole in the cap of a ballpoint pen? Well, you should because it may someday save your life. If a person accidentally swallows the cap by removing it with their mouth and chokes on it, the airway won’t be totally obstructed. There will still be a small opening for air to get through. Better yet, don’t remove the cap with your mouth; use your fingers.
Quotations about Ballpoint Pens
Despite its ubiquity, the ballpoint pen has inspired very few quotable quotes. This is probably because the concept of “pen” itself is so powerful that the type of pen becomes irrelevant. Here are a few quotations about the pen or pens. Some of them you almost surely know. Others may surprise you.
“When you die, others who think they know you will concoct things about you. Things about you. Better pick up a pen and write it yourself, for you know yourself best.”—Sholom Aleichem
“If you get stuck, draw with a different pen. Change your tools; it may free your thinking.”—Paul Allen
“The possibility of being as free with a camera as we are with the pen is a fantastic prospect for the creative life of the 21st century.”—Carlos Fuentes
“A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you’ve already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.“—Paul Graham
“My thinking process starts with my pen.”—Gulzar
“I bought a seven-dollar pen because I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring.”—Mitch Hedberg
Editor’s note: Mr. Hedberg was almost certainly talking about losing ballpoint pens, which generally cost pennies rather than dollars to replace.
“The pen is the tongue of the mind.”—Horace
“The strokes of a pen need as much deliberation as the strokes of a sword need swiftness.”—Julia Ward How
“Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.”—Maimonides
“If you want a transcript of tonight’s program, get a pen and write down everything I said.“—Keven Nealon
“When I say artist I mean the man who is building things — creating molding the earth — whether it be the plains of the west – or the iron ore of Pennsylvania. It’s all a big game of construction – some with a brush – some with a shovel – some choose a pen.”—Jackson Pollock
“I remember when the Bic ballpoint pen was controversial. They came from France. They were cheap, and when one was out of ink, you threw it away; you didn’t dip it into more ink.”—Patti Smith
“There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.”—William Makepeace Thackery
“A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.”—J. R. R. Tolkien
“To hold a pen is to be at war.”—Voltaire
“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’”—John Greenleaf Whittier
“Let’s remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world”—Malala Yousafzai
And of course the pièce de résistance is: “The pen is mightier than the sword.”—Edward G. Bulwer-Lyton
Ballpoint Pen and Computing
The relationship between the ballpoint pen and the computer is not immediately obvious. However, in a very real sense, the pens and styluses increasingly being used in computing can be considered the fourth epoch-making stage in the long history of pens, e.g. quill (pen and ink), fountain pen, ballpoint pen, digital (smart) pen. Before examining this progression, it is interesting to note that one astute observer has posited that in some sense the computer is a ballpoint pen.
In an article published in Bruceb News in 2011, the author briefly recounts the evolution from quill to ballpoint pen, then states that although not a precise analogy, computers have gone through a rather similar evolution, i.e. from being almost magical to being virtually mundane.
They started as fascinating novelties, endlessly interesting, studied and compared as they developed, and treated as status symbols at the high end. Now they’re turning into office tools, interchangeable items that do not inspire much envy or possessiveness.
At one time our computers were well-known to us. We knew the specs. We compared the new processors. We read magazines about the latest models. We’d ooh and aah for the particularly sleek notebook that a colleague got, we’d make informed decisions about video cards, we’d comment on a particularly stylish case.
That doesn’t happen often anymore. All the computers on the market are powerful enough to run Windows 7 or Mac OS X successfully, from the biggest gold-plated gaming monster down (almost) to the bottom, the no-name systems made from plastic scraps and Legos and sold for a few dollars at Walmart. It doesn’t matter what the computer case looks like or what parts are inside as long as it displays web pages and streams Netflix videos.
We’re still going to be able to be impressed by a particularly cool notebook and I’m sure there is still some science fiction technology for our office computers that will be able to impress us, but on the whole, we’re sitting down at our desks to do our work with our tools, with a steadily decreasing sense of magic and excitement.
New devices will go through accelerated versions of the same curve. Last year we passed around smartphones to people who didn’t have them yet. This year we’ll fondle each other’s tablets. Next year—well, who knows? Maybe we’ll compare notes on our optical implants. There is no end in sight to breathtaking technology.
But the things that we currently refer to as “computers,” the boxes under our desk[s] and the notebooks in our briefcases—the magic is just about done. They’re a bit over 20 cents but most of you will be using the modern equivalent of Bic pens—a device well suited to let you do your job and not particularly interesting in its details.
As another writer put it:
Has there ever been a more amazing invention than the pen—an incredibly convenient way of recording information that dates back thousands of years? The only trouble is, pens and paper are not very compatible with the digital technology that surrounds us in the modern world. It’s all very well scribbling little notes to yourself as you sit on the train, but what if you need to put that information into your computer when you get home?
Until recently, your only option would have been to read back your notes and type in the information (that is, write it out all over again). But now there’s a better solution: the digital pen.
Digital pens look like fatter versions of ordinary pens. Packed with electronic circuits, optical devices, and Bluetooth gizmos, they can record the things you write as you write them and transmit them automatically to your computer using wireless technology. Sounds amazing doesn’t it, so how exactly does it all work?
The digital pen (computer pen, smart pen) is an electronic tool resembling a ballpoint pen that permits easy and rapid note-taking by hand, plus the convenience of digital recordkeeping. They also allow the user to make sketches of things that are difficult to concisely describe in words.
There is a wide array of digital pens available to meet virtually every need, e.g. converting hand-written notes into digital text, directly taking notes as digital text, capturing audio recordings, creating digital sketches, marking up digital photos and documents, etc.
A particularly intriguing example from a manufacturer who will remain nameless (if you are really interested you can do an internet search), this model works just like a regular digital pen when teamed with one of the manufacturer’s compatible notebooks. As you write, its built-in camera captures your notes in real-time and stores them in its 128MB internal memory. You can send your handwritten notes directly to your cloud storage account (such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneNote). This digital pen provides up to 10 hours of continuous writing on a single charge.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The first aspect of this question to consider is: Has the death knell already sounded for the cheap, ubiquitous, plastic ink-filed ballpoint pen? Given the incredible capabilities of digital pens, the obvious answer would seem to be “yes.” But making this claim would betray a cultural bias.
In the so-called “developed countries,” computer-based electronic pens may seem destined to sweep aside the ballpoint pen in short order. However, most of the world’s population does not live in such countries and is unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. India is perhaps the most predictive case in point.
The current population (2022) of India is 1.417 billion (l,417,000,000), virtually equal to the 1.420 billion population of China. Its population is expected to rise to 1.515 billion by 2030, at which time it will have surpassed the population of China, making India the most populous country on Earth.
A significant portion of Indians (over half depending on how it is calculated) currently live with severely restricted incomes, if not in dire poverty. This is expected to decrease over the next few years, but only slightly. The thought of owning, or even desiring to own a digital pen is well beyond their needs or expectations.
What is true of India is essentially true of the vast majority of countries outside the members of the G7, the group of so-called seven most industrially advanced countries in the world, consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus the European Union as a “non-enumerated member.” In 2020, all together these countries represent only 10 percent of the total world population.
From a strictly technical point of view, we see that over the centuries, the pen as a prized writing instrument has developed in three distinct phases: 1) quill and ink, 2) fountain pen, and 3) ballpoint pen. As has already been suggested, we are now on the threshold of a fourth distinct phase, the “smart pen.”
Like digital telephones, which today are more commonly called smartphones, the term smart pen seems destined to become the popular name for the rather less commercial term digital pen. Besides just putting words on paper, smart pens offer the crucial additional feature of converting what is written into digital form, which dramatically increases the ways and domains in which these pens can offer significant added value.
Here are some of the more intriguing ideas offered in a 2019 blog post on how smart pens might be developed and used.
• Composer pen
The composer pen would allow users to record audio, e.g. singing or instrumental music. Once recorded, you can connect the pen to a computer, which would then transcribe it into sheet (written) music on the digital display. From here, you could use the pen to modify the sheet music directly on the digital display
• Recorder pen
The recorder pen would allow the user to convert text as they write it into digital form for subsequent processing by a computer. Concretely, it would allow the user to take notes in the traditional way (pen and paper) while simultaneously creating a digital copy which later could be modified on a computer. The computer-digitized handwritten notes could then be sent as an email, added to your favorite note-taking app, or edited in a word processor. Technically, this product already exists. However, at the time of the survey (2019), such products were still being plagued by technical problems, causing words to be distorted, written incorrectly, or missed entirely.
• Projector pen
The projector pen would convert any flat surface into a personal cinema. How? The pen permits the user to both write with it and project images. It would also be compact enough to fit neatly in a coat pocket, purse, or briefcase.
• Emotion-reactive pen
This pen would adjust to the user’s mood. In particular, in different models it would record the user’s temperature, how firmly they are gripping the pen, heartbeat, etc. Based on such input, it would then react to the user’s mood, allowing it to make real-time adjustments to how it functions such as changing the flow of ink, modifying the flexibility of the nib (writing tip), modifying the color of ink, changing how consistently the ink flows to create a looser writing style, etc.
• Fingerprint-enabled pen
This pen would use biometric technology to permit ink to flow only when the user’s fingerprint could be verified. It would therefore help prevent theft; there is little point in stealing a pen that can function only in the hand of the rightful owner. It could be used as a security check, e.g. for ensuring the correct person is signing an important document.
• Self-refilling pen
This pen would refill itself as it is being used. It would do so by extracting moisture and pigments naturally occurring in the air around us, and then converting them into ink which could be stored in the pen’s barrel. Such a pen would do more than just eliminate the inconvenience of running out of ink. It could have a significant effect on protecting the environment. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), Americans throw away 1.6 billion disposable pens every year. A pen that is never thrown away could significantly reduce the detrimental effects of global plastic waste.
• Power-bank pen
This pen would keep mobile phones (smartphones) always well charged. Most mobile phone users suffer “low battery anxiety,” i.e. the nagging worry that their phone will run out of juice when there is no convenient place to recharge it. The current solution to counter this anxiety is portable chargers carried around in pockets, tote bags, briefcases, purses, backpacks, etc. Having a built-in charger, the power bank pen would eliminate the need for ancillary equipment. A built-in charger would no doubt make the pen somewhat heavier. However, in the view of people currently researching the idea, with the right technology, this added weight would be very little and unlikely to affect how people use the pen for writing.
• Color-picker Pen
This pen lets you digitally scan any color and then write in that color.
And the concepts for innovative new smart pens keep on coming.
These imaginative looks forward tend to give the impression that digital pens are a fairly recent idea. However, these epoch-making advances already have a long and somewhat tortuous past. This should not be surprising. Virtually every major technological step forward, in whatever technological field, is the result of many small, hesitant baby steps that preceded it.
In the case of the digital pen, some would argue we are talking about centuries, rather than years or decades.
In computing, a stylus(or stylus pen) is a small pen-shaped instrument used to select items or draw by tapping. Indeed, devices with touchscreens (computers, smartphones, personal digital assistants, game consoles, graphic tablets, etc.) can usually be operated with a fingertip, however, a digital stylus usually provides more accurate and controllable input.
The earliest computer-related usage for a stylus was in 1643 with Pascal’s calculator. The device had dials that rotated in accordance with the selected numbers. Via gears, drums, and clever engineering, it was capable of doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division A stylus was used to turn the dials. Of course, the stylus was not digital, but rather what dictionaries define as “an ancient writing implement, consisting of a small rod with a pointed end for scratching letters on wax-covered tablets.”
Later devices that used a simple stylus to operate them include the Arithmometer in the 1850s and the Addiator in 1920.
- The Arithmometer is noteworthy for being the first mechanical digital calculator robust enough and reliable enough to stand up to daily in an office environment. The machine could add and subtract two numbers directly as well as perform long multiplications and divisions.
- The Addiator was a pocket mechanical adding machine that used a stylus to move tiny rigid slices of sheet metal that were enclosed in a case. On the side of a slice of metal were numbers that became visible to display the result. The Addiator was capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In 1967, the HEXADA, a significantly more advanced model was released. This new machine allowed four-function math to be applied to hexadecimal numbers for use in programming.
The first use of a stylus in an electronic computing machine occurred in 1957 with a demonstration of the Stylator, The first graphic tablet resembling contemporary tablets and used for handwriting recognition by a computer.
From the perspective of social impact, perhaps the most significant first was the 2007 introduction of the Amazon Kindle. Kindle was the first commercially successful attempt to provide digital books displayed on digital paper. However, not unexpectedly it took some time to develop technology that could act as a display using nanomaterials rather than electronics to move light and dark-colored particles into position. Other manufacturers of digital reading devices made images of book pages on portable devices such as smartphones and tablets, but many human readers liked the sharpness of digital paper better than display screens. Unfortunately, the size of the Kindle screen stayed at 7 inches for many years, smaller than a pocketbook page and insufficient for applications such as publishing daily newspapers. This may reflect a technological limit on the size of digital paper that can be supported by the battery.
However, quite recently Kindle introduced a larger display screen of just over 10 inches. It also comes with a digital pen you can use to make notes on pages you are reading. Unfortunately, these are restricted to sticky notes which appear as small icons on the display and can be opened by tapping. You cannot underline or write directly into the margin. This is probably a technical limitation due to the way the digital book is represented.
Interestingly, they can convert pen pressure on the touch screen into a dark mark underneath the pen tip. This is a significant technical accomplishment. The touch screen detects the position of a pressure point but does not alter the display; the Kindle scribe writing screen alters the display.
The pen itself is a replica of a ballpoint pen. The tips look like ballpoint pen tips. The writing feels like a ballpoint pen. But they don’t last forever. If you do a lot of writing in your Kindle books, you may need to replace the tips every few weeks.