Im designing a Tablet like device aimed for students and medical facilities. It will have a monochrome black and white display that is touch sensitive like a tablet, alternately i may decide to have a touchpad like a Laptop instead. Anyway it will function as a very simple tablet which can be used to write on and also can have forms loaded onto it. The limited functionality will keep the hardware requirements low and so it will be a low cost device.

Any advice or comments.

Whats the sole purpose? To rid of paper in offices or for students to write and submit their papers electronically? If you're going to make something like this, I'd at least give it a color screen and wireless connectivity.

Especially for students and the medical field, numerous documents and reports are color coded, so it will need to have a color screen to be of value in today's environments.

Wireless would also be a great benefit, although a standard Ethernet port might be as useful if it's functionality will not include internet or network browsing and network capabilities would only be designed for ftp style upload/download of prepared documents to limit complexity.

One thing you would surely want to include is USB, Serial, and Parallel ports for connecting to peripheral devices.

Also, careful consideration of the OS will be needed for hardware driver support. A custom Linux kernel embedded into the device might be the way to go for easy of production and standardization, however, that will make patching and bug fixes more difficult than just a standard package manager will most likely support.

I have to assume that this is a school/educational project of some sort, as it is something that has been done and is already marketed in mass from many different hardware vendors, but to create a viable product for today's market, it will have to include modern hardware and software without-a-doubt, and should have some level of expandability.

the origin of this idea is that i was looking for a laptop (and software) i could use to take notes in my physics class. The way i take notes i need to be able to seamlessly draw diagrams, label them, and type equations and words. MathCAD can handle the equations but not the drawing. So i started to look for a cheap tablet. There isnt one.

So i decided to outline the bare minimum of what i would need. One color to draw in and something to write. Then i would need one port (lets say USB) to sync the notes to my Desktop PC at home. The fact is that that doesnt require a whole lot of advanced hardware.

The possibility of selling this to medical facilities came later. I realized that if i have enough processing power to process a touchsensitive display then i have enough to create forms. The idea is that a doctor's office could purchase maybe 5 of these devices and then load files for all patient forms onto them, then instead of paper forms and files they could just hand them out in the office and sync the device. No more paper at the doctor's office.

You've got to remember, electronic devices have security issues and I for one wouldn't trust my personal information to such a device. Just think about Diebold and shudder.

true that they do have security issues but what is to stop people from glancing over your shoulder at the doctor's office? what about a form thats accidentally tossed in the garbage and recovered by someone with ill intent? The security is the reason im not including wireless capability. I will consider that when choosing what port to put on the device.

This is very early stages in fact this may be never built but i thought i would bounce the idea around a bit to see if i should pursue this.

ok so here is what im getting.

-The device is useful
-but you want color
-you want wireless
-you want extensive security

ill work on those three issues and be back in a couple of weeks

pretty contradictory, huh? I'd recommend to K.I.S.S. and forget about the medical security-intensive side (for now).

thx that is some good advice

Since my mom was a director of a hospital before here pension and she wanted portable thin clients 15 years ago to save money, and a lots of money.

for hardware you need as said a colourscreen, usb, ethernet and some wireless. Serial and parallel, bluetooth is not needed since usb and wireless can do it. A camera would be nice to document. And why not a fingerprint security system.

But the bigest problem is the servers and the backbone. You have political forces that stops money saving. For example a patient comes in to the local hospital and tests are run and the the this patient needs treatment in a bigger hospital and the same tests are run again. Its a huge wast. with a central system the test would be filed in a server and the doctor in the new hospital would just check the tests directly throw the thin client in his hand.

To save money my mom did put an experienced doctor next door to a new one and she made a door between the two offices so the new could just ask the older one to have a look at a patient.This was done so the new docktor did not run all the tests if he was unsure. Less tests, less time etc. The camera could work like that but more flexible.

Its real hard to make a system like this work with all the byrocrats that want power and stab you in the back.

by the way its a lot of companies doing this.

if you go to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota all there stuff is on a server... but then again thats Mayo.

I dont get WHY we need a color screen or thumbprint scanner to fill out forms an turn them in to the receptionist. Also i would think you would only need 1 port on the device since it would only sync with 1 computer. Possibly the TYPE of port could be an option but not multiple ports on all devices, thats overbuilding.

The point im getting at is this is a one-shot device. It is handed to the patient with the correct blank form loaded. The patient writes the correct information into the form and hands it back. Then the device is quickly synced to a server and the drive is wiped. Next patient please. The color paper and stuff could be encoded into the program itself but i dont get why it is needed on the screen. Ive filled out many medical forms and none have more than one prominent color.