Patent ID: 8187051

Claim:
A system having a computer and a computer peripheral toy device comprising: a. a housing; b. a connection cable that connects the housing to a computer including a display; c. a drawing tablet on the housing; d. a stylus connected to the housing; e. a plurality of drawing style buttons on the housing, each drawing style button being shaped to simulate the appearance of an inkwell and comprising a concave portion sized to receive the stylus when depressing the drawing style button; f. a plurality of design tool buttons disposed on the housing adjacent to said drawing tablet; g. a controller in the housing that is electrically connected to switches associated with each of the drawing style buttons and design tool buttons, and to the stylus, wherein the controller determines a position of the stylus on the drawing tablet and detects when a switch is actuated by depressing a design tool button or a drawing style button and supplies messages to the computer comprising information representing the same; and h. computer software for installation on the computer, that when executed, causes the computer to respond to the messages received from the controller to engage in a drawing activity using drawing style parameters based on which of the drawing style buttons and design tool buttons are selected by a user, wherein the computer software further comprises instructions, that, when executed by the computer, cause the computer to present a menu of drawing activities to the user on the display.