| The Koala pad was a small "touch tablet" for the Apple ][ series of computers.
The device was made of white molded plastic and had two big black Playskool-esqe buttons at the top. Below the buttons was a black area about four inches by six inches which was the tablet.
A basic drawing program was part of the included software (yet not part of a complete breakfast) and what you "drew" on the tablet would appear on the screen. To draw, you could use your finger or the included black plastic stylus — trying to use any other object be it an elbow, the intangible sheer ugliness of a AMC Pacer, or a back issue of Dynamite magazine would have probably voided the warranty (as well as looked just plain goofy, you silly goose!).
The Koala pad plugged into the joystick port of the Apple. If necessity was your mother (as it was in my case), you could use the Koala pad instead of a joystick. As the joystick we had for our Apple ceased working one day this was how I had to control games — much to the chagrin of friends who would want to be able to control the outcome of a game with any reasonable probability. (This frustration rated just above the fact that a rope was the only way to get into my room — it being a loft, not "the other side" from Poltergeist).
The Koala pad was made by:
Koala Technologies Corporation
4962 El Camino Real, Suite 125
Los Altos, CA 94022
(415) 964-2992
The Koala pad was priced at one hundred and twenty-five U.S. dollars, so quit blowing your allowance on candy and start savin'!
Update: you can see an episode of The Computer Chronicles from 1988 which takes a look at the Koala Pad by going to
http://www.archive.org/movies/movies-details-db.php?collection=computerchronicles&collectionid=CC517_commodore_64 | 
