Freelance Traveller

Sketch Board

by Timothy Collinson

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2020 issue.

This is a 1m×750cm electronic screen made of lightweight and durable material, that together with the tripod easel that accompanies it provides an instant focal point for street or village square presentations, promotion, evangelism or training. It can display illustrations, video and be used in ‘paint’ mode whereby the user can write or sketch onto the surface. It contains sufficient memory to store many technical or instruction manuals, as well as a wide variety of story-telling material, along with user created material. It allows a DM +1 to education or training tasks. Prototypes are available at TL8; these have rigid screen units that are either connected to a separate computer unit by cable, or have the computer unit incorporated into a thicker display unit, and either require software with a cumbersome interface or special ‘pens’ to ‘write’, ‘draw’, or ‘paint’. At late TL9+, the easel can be folded into a narrow if lengthy case with the screen wrapped around for transport. At TL12 gravitic technology is small and reliable enough to dispense with the easel – although some low tech cultures will find this very disturbing or distracting.