Tungsten T3-digitizer inaccurate in bottom of screen

[Tam Hanna]

Hi dudes,
my T3 recently got a high-res+ landscape version of SrcEdit.
And only now I see that my digitizer does not work well in the bottom areas of the screen that is usually covered by the slider. Even if I am way off the scereen(at the slider itself), I still cannot select the leftmost character in landscape mode.
Do your T3's have a similar problem? Will sending it in to PalmOne's fix the problem?

[Gekko]

Tam - I thought you were an expert. This is a long-time well known issue on the T3. Do a search for the multiple threads out there on this subject. "T3 Digitizer Drift".

[Tam Hanna]

Hi Gekko,
I knew that. However, I just wanted to gather some more oppinions!
Because I now face a difficult decicion:
vacation without palm or fix digitizer myself!

[Gekko]

Tam - The only fix for this issue appears to be a complete digitizer replacement from www.pdaparts.com. Many of us T3 owners simply just live with the drift until something better comes along. We have been waiting a long, long time for a worthy successor to the speed, stability, backward-compatibility, and compactness of the T3. I hope we get one soon.

Best wishes -

G

[Tam Hanna]

Hi Gekko,
I decided to give the CustomerCare one last shot. Lets see if they can fix it! Or, lets see if they are even willing to repair my T3...
The last three times they said that a repair man will email me, but then cust fogot and closed the case!

[thejuice]

If this can help, I tried to gather extensive information about this. Apparently, there are two types of defects. One is a linear shift of the digitizer coordinates, which ultimately results in parts of the screen having very large gap between the actual pen position and the reported coordinates. This can be fixed using DigiE or such other calibration tools that calibrate over the full (slider extended) screen. Seeing the report, there seems to be a small non-linearity component as well, but something that is not such a hindrance.

Another type is a non-linear warping of the digitizer reported coordinates (my case). The top 1/5 of the screen has only a moderate shift upwards of maybe 5 pixels, then from there the gap "turns around" in the other direction, culminating at about 20 pixels at around the 2/5 point down. Then the gap slowly reduces to reach only a few pixels at the bottom of the screen. This type of shift is really painful, because the gap variable in size, and most of all it is in varying direction at different points on the screen. It forces you to use the "touch-slide-lift" technique, which doesn't work in all types of forms.

I have been thinking of making a software fix for that by creating a hack that will compensate for the non-linearity, and use a calibration software that uses a grid to gather shift data across all the screen at small intervals. I figured out that it would need to hack PenGetCoordinates, massage the coordinates according to a non-linear formula parameterized by the calibration app, and return the result to the original caller.

However, even though I'm a fairly experienced programmer, I don't have any experience in PalmOS programming, and couldn't gather the spare time to start...

[Tam Hanna]

Hi,
I have a nonlinear component..
It works well in the top 320x320, but gets crazy close to the slider. I feel that one would have to fix this with a hack that compensates the coordinates with a nonlinear graph and linear interpolation! However, the inaccuracy is way to low at the bottom! Also, the speed would drop,....
Generally, I frown at creating software fixes for PalmOne's erors. Like this, the company wil never create a working device!

[M. Hinman]

Well, thankfully mine is still under warranty and it is going back to Palm. I'm not sure I can live without it for two weeks.

Anyway, I've had some success with DIgiE, but now it's so far off I can't stand it. Some apps are unusable in landscape or stretched portrait.

I'm seriously thinking of the LifeDrive....

--
M. Hinman

[bloney]

Hello,

It's been a while since my T3 finally died and I moved over to (well, you know what, but I can't possibly ,mention it on a Palm website..!).

But I had the digitiser problem and was gobsmacked when I found a piece of freeware that fixed it.

I think it was called DigIe - let you calibrate the digitser full screen. I found it on freewarepalm.com I think.

From memory, be careful to follow the instructions from the author about deleting it or something tho'...

Good luck and hope it works for you as well as it did for me.

Lester

[Cannonball C]

Hi. I'm wondering if this problem is a hardware or software problem? Is it the driver for the digitizer which is returning b0rked coordinates, or is it the digitizer itself which is applying these strange translations to the pen's actual position?
What I'm really wondering is this: would a replacement digitizer fix the problem?

Thanks!

[Conor]

Ok, so that was me posting there, but now I'll get email if anyone responds. Thanks!

[lesliefranke]

Hello,

It's been a while since my T3 finally died and I moved over to (well, you know what, but I can't possibly ,mention it on a Palm website..!).

But I had the digitiser problem and was gobsmacked when I found a piece of freeware that fixed it.

I think it was called DigIe - let you calibrate the digitser full screen. I found it on freewarepalm.com I think.

From memory, be careful to follow the instructions from the author about deleting it or something tho'...

Good luck and hope it works for you as well as it did for me.

Lester


Fixed it for me too. DigiE download link (http://www.freewarepalm.com/utilities/digie.shtml)

Two important notes when running DigiE on a T3.

1. DigiE must be ran in full screen mode. Before running DigiE you need to open the T3slider and hide the DIA, then start DigiE and calibrate.

2. For whatever reason DigiE has a bug which can prevent the T3 from turning off if the program is stored on your Palm. After calibrating move the program to your SD-card for later use.

[shinjiplus]

Fixed it for me too. DigiE download link (http://www.freewarepalm.com/utilities/digie.shtml)

Two important notes when running DigiE on a T3.

1. DigiE must be ran in full screen mode. Before running DigiE you need to open the T3slider and hide the DIA, then start DigiE and calibrate.

2. For whatever reason DigiE has a bug which can prevent the T3 from turning off if the program is stored on your Palm. After calibrating move the program to your SD-card for later use.

how can DigiE be run in full screen mode?

when I run DigiE, the input panel slides up and covers the part of the screen that needs to be calibrated (the part hidden by the slider).

[shinjiplus]

how can DigiE be run in full screen mode?

when I run DigiE, the input panel slides up and covers the part of the screen that needs to be calibrated (the part hidden by the slider).

if anyone cares, after i put some T3 updates on my palm and started using it (I tried to run DigiE on a freshly hard-reset palm), DigiE was able to run in full-screen mode (hide input panel before opening DigiE).

[lesliefranke]

if anyone cares, after i put some T3 updates on my palm and started using it (I tried to run DigiE on a freshly hard-reset palm), DigiE was able to run in full-screen mode (hide input panel before opening DigiE).

Sorry, I did not reply back to you. That is exactly what you need to do.