Inkbase

With pen and paper, anyone can write a journal entry, draw a diagram, perform a calculation, or sketch a cartoon. Digital tablets like the iPad or reMarkable can adapt pen and paper into the world of digital media. In doing so, they trade away some of paper’s advantages like cheapness and tangibility. In exchange, we get new computational powers like nondestructive editing and ease of transmission. But they have yet to achieve the greatest computational capability of all: the ability to define entirely new computational behaviors—to program.

The success of spreadsheets demonstrates that users can make effective use of open-ended programmability—to speed computations, explore what-if scenarios, and have thoughts they wouldn’t have had using their analog predecessor (a paper grid and manual calculations).

What would be possible if hand-drawn sketches were programmable like spreadsheets?

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