T-Mobile G1 multi-touch demonstrated in video

[Seraphic]

Originally Posted by Ryan Gardner

The reason it is not smooth is because of how this is hacked together. The most recent touchscreen event buffer is being written to /dev/tsout on my device. I have a thread in the java program constantly polling that looking for data - but the likelihood of the thread always polling it at the right time to get the touch data is pretty low - and it probably drops most of the touch events.

Regarding the hardware level... That was already proven unequivocally by the debug logs which were posted last week - the hardware without any doubts supports and does track multiple fingers.

If anything, the fact that such a crude and rough hack works at all shows a lot of potential for what can be done once the proper support is put in place.

Also, please refrain from making up terms like "capacitive averaging" in an attempt to justify your skepticism.

I say what I see. I said I'm not sold on the idea; I didn't say it proved either way. Yes, the program was hacked together and it's a good example of what could be done, and I hope the hardware supports true multitouch - I'd love my G1 to support it but until I see a working, practical example I'll remain skeptical.

Terms such as "capacitive averaging" aren't made up at all, anyone who works with touchscreen technology will tell you this - there's no exact name for it, it's what we call it at Panasonic. Almost all touchscreens use a form of capacitive averaging to determine positional input data. Take a look here if you must for a basic example. There are projected non-capacitive averaging screens which only take the very first contact with the screen into account. These are commonly used in touch-keypads and anything that doesn't require 'movement' of the finger/stylus.