As of 2026, treading the line as to what is really "vintage" - but given that this computer is about a year short of being of legal drinking age, it seems like it qualifies. Made in 2006-2007, somehow still able to sit here and write this post from the system (have we all agreed that computing technology plateaued in the 2010s yet?). 😀

I'm at the tail end of a week-long project of having been handed a Gateway M285-E convertible tablet/laptop, and asked to fix it up. Mission accomplished - but the hardest part was the STYLUS, which was missing. A quick search on eBay revealed one seller offering a box of 28 pens (!) for just pocket change. I only needed one... so I thought! Well, I got a box of 28.

Good thing I did. The tablet in this system is made by a long-defunct company - FinePoint Innovations - that made some very questionable design decisions. First, the protocol of the stylus is unique to the company - can't just use a Wacom or any other stylus. Gotta be FinePoint. But the real killer? The stylus (styli?) were designed to be consumable, disposable...

There was one YouTube video that described how to replace the battery "to save some money" back in 2014-ish:
https://youtu.be/pY7Mdt1194Q

Watch the video, suffer the pain. There were a couple key mistakes in there, though:
* It's alkaline, not NiMH. Both types of AAAA cells are fairly commonly available, so an easy mistake I imagine. But the NiMH cell is reverse-polarity of the alkaline version; alkaline AAAAs actually have reversed polarity due to the chemical layout. The "tip" is actually negative, the shell is positive!
* The heat-shrink tubing should actually be removed, if the AAAA cell (e.g. from a 9v battery) is wrapped - it'll interfere with the spring and bind, causing it to intermittently disconnect.

Now, about the modern day situation.

Out of 28 pens, I got a total of 4 "perfect" working pens, 2 "okay" pens (pressure sensing takes extra force), 15 "tracks, but can't tap or detect any pressure", and 6-7 "totally dead or severely malfunctioning" pens. Because... all these dang cells LEAK! Probably 8 in 10 cells had visible gunk, and the others probably leaked vapor otherwise.

Let's also talk software/drivers. The latest FinePoint Innovations tablet driver I could find online was v4.4.1, dated October 30, 2006. Fortunately enough, it works well in Windows 7 and Windows 8(.1). And the Windows 8 part matters, because the FinePoint driver doesn't properly implement WinTab, which many bits of tablet software came to rely upon. Windows 8 seems to provide another translation layer, that takes the old driver and maps it to a different API that software can recognize pen pressure with. That actually makes the tablet work *better* on a newer Windows version than an old one.

Without being able to find that driver online, the tablet is useless - neither Snappy Driver Installer Origin (SDIO) nor Windows Update know about it. Thus, in the interest of digital preservation, that driver is attached here:

My technique for replacing the cells came down to this:
1) Wii strap. Loop through the hole and secure it. Then, secure the strap to something sturdy to pull against.
2) Rubber grip. I used a silicone pad, but other similar things are often sold as "jar grips for seniors". You need a tight grip.
3) Lighter. Pull the pen tight (tight!!). Flick the lighter, wave it side to side around the steel collar just before where it transitions to plastic. Try not to let the flame touch the plastic.
4) Pop. The cap and pen should start giving way, and then fly apart. Sometimes the spring flies off as well, but often it stays with the stylus.
5) Spring. Dislodge the spring and put it aside, or go retrieve it.
6) Unstick. Wiggle the positive-terminal-stick around a little and see if the cell and stick wiggle together. If they don't, you'll need to unstick the shrink-tube from the pen, as the factory's CA glue often seems to leak down there and stick the tubing to the side. You really, really DO want the shrink-tube to come out with the cell, but it often stays behind.
7) Extract the cell. Use a pokey-tool of some kind to scratch at the side of the cell and prop it forward. Sometimes takes a baby-step approach to squeeze it out, millimeter by millimeter, until you can grab it. If the shrink-tube comes up with the cell, great - near the end, separate them (it won't fit around the curled end of the positive stick) and then pull out the cell and shrink-tube separately.
8. Extract the shrink tube. Sometimes it comes up with the cell, if you're lucky. If not, get a poky-stick in there and detach it from the leaked glue on the walls. Get it outta there.
9) Vinegar. Q-tip and some vinegar, get down there and see if you hear a "sizzle" when you touch the negative terminal at the bottom. Clean it as much as you can.
10) New cell. A cell extracted from a certain kind of 9-volt battery (some are "pancake" style, some are the cylindrical cells we need) works great here. Make sure the NEGATIVE side is the tip, and positive is the can. Tip (negative) goes down. Put the spring on.
11) Test. It ought to register position on the screen, but that's half the challenge - does it actually register taps/pressure? It has "256 pressure levels", and much of the time you really only need one. Often, it doesn't register any. Hopefully it's good!
12) Recap. Align the notch on the steel body with the tab of the cap, fit it on. It should hold well without any glue.

Well, attachment limit 😀 But let's see if this is good enough to continue posting about. Figured it's worth throwing out there - these pens are WEIRD! Short lived, crazy design choices to have a non-rechargeable battery inside with no activation strip or anything. Just... alive, from day one out of the factory. Born to be E-waste. And that's probably why these aren't discussed much... they just all died!