the.com/stylus
The original pointing device, predating the touchscreen by roughly five thousand years.
means A pointed instrument used for writing, drawing, or selecting things on a surface — from wax tablets to smartphone screens.
from From Latin 'stylus' (also spelled 'stilus'), the pointed tool Romans used to scratch words into wax tablets — one end sharp for writing, the flat end for smoothing out mistakes. The same root gives us 'style': a writer's 'stilus' came to mean the manner of their writing, and eventually the way anyone does anything. (The spelling 'stylus' was nudged toward Greek 'stylos,' meaning pillar, by later writers who assumed a Greek connection that wasn't really there.)
- ancient origin
- Sumerians pressed cuneiform into clay with reed styli
- name source
- Latin stilus, also root of the word style
- comeback story
- Killed by fingers, revived by artists wanting precision
- palm pioneer
- PalmPilot's Graffiti made stylus handwriting mainstream in 1996
- pressure aware
- Modern tips sense thousands of force levels
apple pencil — stylus for ipad released by apple in 2015, sold over 1 million units annually
s pen — samsung's stylus for galaxy note devices, introduced in 2011 with pressure sensitivity
wacom pen — professional digital stylus brand used by designers and artists since 1996