Sooner or later, almost everything goes digital: cameras, camcorders, music players, TV, books, you name it.

So far, though, there’s been no successful electronic version of the input device beloved by reporters, students, lyricists and claims adjusters: good old pen on paper.

There have been efforts. Pens based on Anoto technology (sold by Logitech and others) and Leapfrog’s Fly Fusion pen work the same way: you write on special paper that’s been printed with millions of nearly invisible microdots. By watching those dots, a tiny camera in the pen tip learns its position and a microchip converts your pen strokes into digital ink. Such pens can transfer the results to a PC and do basic handwriting recognition.

Jim Marggraff, a veteran of both Anoto and Leapfrog, is now at a new start-up company called LiveScribe. This month, it introduced the Pulse smartpen, which Mr. Marggraff says is the final step in his vision for “paper-based computing.”