Information about stylus

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Modern stylus, used with touch-screens on electronic devices such as the Nintendo DS and personal digital assistants

Styli used in writing in the Fourteenth Century.

A stylus (plural: styli or styluses) is a writing utensil. The word is also used for a computer accessory (PDAs). It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styluses are heavily curved to be held more easily.

Styli were first used by the ancient Mesopotamians in order to write in cuneiform, usually made out of reeds that grew on the sides of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and in marshes and down to Egypt where the Egyptians used styluses from sliced reeds with sharp points. Cuneiform was entirely based on the "wedge-shaped" mark that the end of a cut reed made when pushed into a clay tablet, hence the name "cuneiform" from Latin cuneus = "wedge".

Function

Styli were used from classical times until the nineteenth century to write on wax tablets (tabulae), which were used for various purposes, from secretaries' notes to recording accounts. Some wax-tablets have been preserved in waterlogged deposits, for example in the Roman fort at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall. One end of such styli was pointed for writing and the other was flattened into a broad shape for erasing.

Use in Arts

Styli are used in various arts and crafts still. Example situations: rubbing off dry transfer letters, tracing designs onto a new surface with carbon paper, and hand embossing. Styli are also used to engrave into materials like metal or clay.

Use in music recording and reproduction

Main article: Magnetic cartridge

Osmium-tipped stylus for jukebox using shellac 78rpm records, 1940s

a gramophone cartridge with stylus for use on vinyl records

In the sound recording industry, a stylus is a phonograph or gramophone needle used to play back sound on gramophone records, as well as to record the sound indentations on the master record.

Several technologies were used to record the sounds, beginning with wax cylinders. The harder the material used, the harder the stylus had to be. The latter stylus for vinyl records were made out of Sapphire or diamond.

Modern use

Today, the term stylus often refers to an input method usually used in PDAs and graphics tablets. In this method, a stylus that secretes no ink touches a touch screen instead of a finger to avoid getting the natural oil from one's hands on the screen, or produces brushstrokes in a computer screen, respectively. Styli are also used with the Nintendo DS handheld gaming device, which has two screens, the bottom one being touch-sensitive.

A stylus may also be used to scribe a recording into smoked foil or glass. In various instruments this method may be used instead of a pen for recording as it has the advantage of being able to operate over a wide temperature range, does not clog or dry prematurely, and has very small friction in comparison to other methods. These characteristics were useful in certain types of early seismographs and in recording barographs used in determining sailplane altitude records.

The sharpest stylus possible has a single atom at its tip. Such styli are used in scanning tunneling microscopes.

Etymology

The word stylus along with the word "style" came from the Latin word stilus meaning: "a stake; a pointed instrument, used by the

Several Styluses. (L to R) PalmPilot Professional, Fossil Wrist PDA, Nokia 770, Audiovox XV6600, HP Jornada 520, Sharp Zaurus 5500, Fujitsu Lifebook P-103

romans, for writing upon wax tablets". ^[1] The spelling was influenced by the Greek word στυλος meaning "column" or "pillar". According to the 1875 London Dictionary of Greek & Roman Antiquities a Stilus is "an object tapering like an architectural column; a metal instrument resembling a pencil in size and shape, used for writing or recording impressions upon waxed tablets. It signifies:

"An iron instrument (Ov. Met. IX.521; Martial, XIV.21), resembling a pencil in size and shape, used for writing upon waxed tablets (Plaut. Bacch. IV.4.63; Plin. H.N. XXXIV.14). At one end it was sharpened to a point for scratching the characters upon the wax (Quintil. i.1 §27), while the other end being flat and circular served to render the surface of the tablets smooth again, and so to obliterate what had been written. Thus, vertere stilum means to erase, and hence to correct, as in the well-known precept saepe stilum vertas (Hor. Sat. 1.10.72; Cic. Verr. II.41)."

References

1. ^ University of Notre Dame online latin dictionary ([1]

Concrete objects

Wedge (mechanical device), a simple machine used to separate two objects, or portions of objects, through the application of force.
Wedge (golf), a specialized type of club used at short ranges.

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A wax tablet ( tabula ) is a tablet made of wood and covered with a layer of wax. It was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages.
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For the financial term, see watered stock.

Waterlogging is a verbal noun meaning the saturation of such as ground or the filling of such as a boat with water.
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Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia.
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Military of ancient Rome ()
800 BC–AD 476
Structural history
Roman army (unit types and ranks,
legions, auxiliaries, generals)
Roman navy (fleets, )
Campaign history
Lists of Wars and Battles
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Hadrian's Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of modern-day England. It was the second of three such fortifications built across Great Britain, the first being Gask Ridge and the last the Antonine Wall.
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Dry transfer is a term used to describe decals which can be applied without the use of water or other solvent. Sometimes they are called rub-ons or rubdowns due to the method of application.
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Carbon paper (originally carbonic paper) is paper coated on one side with a layer of a loosely bound dry ink or pigmented coating, usually bound with wax. It is used for making one or more copies simultaneous with the creation of an original document.
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Embossing is the process of creating a three-dimensional image or design in paper and other ductile materials. It is typically accomplished with a combination of heat and pressure on the paper.
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Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold or steel are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing
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The Macro Expansion Template Attribute Language complements TAL, providing macros which allow the reuse of code across template files. Both were created for Zope but are used in other Python projects as well.
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Clay is a naturally occurring material, composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried or fired.
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A magnetic cartridge is a transducer used for the playback of gramophone records on a turntable or phonograph. It converts mechanical vibrational energy from a stylus riding in a spiral record groove into an electrical signal that is subsequently amplified and then converted back
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Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, usually used for the voice or for music.

The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.
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Edison cylinder phonograph ca. 1899]] The phonograph, or gramophone, was the most common device for playing recorded sound from the 1870s through the 1980s.

Terminology

Usage of these terms is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below).
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gramophone record (also phonograph record, or simply record) is an analogue sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed modulated spiral groove starting near the periphery and ending near the center of the disc.
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phonograph cylinders. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity (c. 1888–1915), these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was played on a mechanical phonograph.
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Sapphire is the blue variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃). It can be found naturally or manufactured in large crystal boules for varied applications, including infrared optical components, watch faces, high-durability windows, and wafers
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Diamond is an allotrope of carbon. It is the hardest known natural material and the third-hardest known material after aggregated diamond nanorods and ultrahard fullerite. Its hardness and high dispersion of light make it useful for industrial applications and jewelry.
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