The palm hand writing system was amazing. Instead of trying to teach the computer to recognize everyone's handwriting, people - the users, adapted by learning a few very simple rules, to write notes. It took about 3 minutes to learn. After 5 minutes of use, you could take down written notes, almost as fast as on paper - which were digitised. You could do it without looking at the screen. (20 years later old Palm users still have a few weird handwriting quirks.)