Digitizing Handwritten Forms

I need help! My work has spreadsheet forms that are filled out in the field, and then need to be transferred into our Oracle Database. Right now, we have a guy who enters these by hand all day-everyday. I have been trying to develop a way to remove the doldrum manual entry. I have kicked around tablet PC's in teh field, but they would have to be very tough (marine grade for saltwater). I have tried to look up OCR(optical characyer recognition), but it seems to be unable to recognize handwriting. Recently I looked at digital pens, but I do not understand them fully.

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas how to remove the manual entry from this process?

Thanks,
K

 

A good digital pen (and i mean A GOOD high priced-high end one) will record it into its memory card and you plug it into your computer and it is supposed to put it on your screen. I have a friend who has one, they are pretty nifty although his was abouy $5 at WalMart i think, it doesnt get down EVERY word perfectly but it does an impressive job...

 

Only $5?

 

yup, on sale... normally 15 dollars... (its kinda cheap though) its already cracking, not like he uses it any more... just for refferreeing and such (is that a word? lol)