I have setup a CAD tablet and some Character inputting device(Pen) for my client. The CAD tablet plug into serial port and can coexist with another serial or PS/2 mouse. I have not seen anyone use the mouse with his left hand and run the tablet on his right hand, so I don't know it will function simultaneously or not :) but it works one at a time. Usually, the tablet only work with the CAD software running. For the pens, most of my client use it for Chinese inputting as Chinese typing is pain in the @#$. It plugs into a serial port, it can co-exist with another serial or PS/2 mouse. Win95 will even auto load a driver for the pen. But one must run an OCR software to translate the handwriting into character. One thing to watch out for is IRQ conflict. This might not be problem on newer computer with modems that can use IRQ10 and PS/2 mouse using IRQ12. But on older model, you may have serial mouse, pen and modem each using com 1,2 and 3 respectively. I generally set the mouse and pen to com 1 and 3 with the modem on com 2, assuming most people would not use the pen and the serial mouse simultaneously. Hope this help, Dan >1. Can a pen and tablet be functional simultaneously with a mouse? >2. Do they normally plug into a serial port, a parallel port, or are some >available for USB ports? >3. Are there any brand names and models that are particularly good or >particularly bad? ----- PCBUILD mailing list - http://nospin.com Bob Wright:[log in to unmask] - Drew Dunn:[log in to unmask]