Having done a bit of Googling over the weekend, I found that the new toy I so eagerly crave is available as a free download from Microsoft for TabletPC. Unfortunately it will not work with a non-tablet PC.

Or so I thought.....

Further Googling revealed that the source code is apparently freely available and that with a wee bit of jiggery-pokery it can be made to work with a non-tablet PC. I'm no programmer, but one of the school IT technicians (Bob) loves a challenge, so I've delegated him the task (or should that be derelicted my duty) to find a way to make it work.

Watch this space!

Or, if you too relish a challenge, follow these links -

Download(s)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56347faf-a639-4f3b-9b87-1487fd4b5a53&displaylang=en

or

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/tabletpc.mspx

(First download needs validation, second doesn't, not sure if they're different.)

Source Code

http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/Details/aeee3085-a219-47d6-88fc-a2501f00800d/Details.aspx

Instructions

http://blog.hypercubed.com/archives/2006/02/05/how-to-use-physics-illistrator-on-non-tablet-pc/

If anyone reading this does make it work, please let me know how you get on. Good luck!