Essay About Rand Tablet And Earliest Tablet Computers

Tablet Pc
Tablet PC
Running head: TABLET PC
Tablet PC
Steven M. Weidler; Blaine Bostelman; Tonya Culbreath; Brent Gipson
Piedmont College
Tablet PC
Abstract
Tablet PC
Tablet PC
History
Tablets as we recognize them today have their beginnings in the 1950s-1960s. In 1964 the
Rand tablet one of the earliest tablet computers was developed and sold for $18,000. It had an
attached stylus that sensed electronic pulses through a fine grid of conductors. The 1970s and
1980s saw the development of several stylus based devices that quickly became obsolete
because they were not user friendly, and expensive. (Smith, 2010) The first viable portable
tablet computer was developed in 1989 and was called the “grid pad.” It was designed to assist
people out in the field to collect data. It arrived on the scene and was gone with in five years.
The early nineties also saw the first PDA, Windows pen computing, and Apples message pad.
In 1993 Fujitsu released the first pen tablet for use on a local area network. That year the world
leaders at the G7 summit were all given one of these Fugitsu tablets for use at the Halifax
meeting. Pen computing didnt seem to catch on and by 1995 it was dying rapidly.
(Blickenstorfer, 2005) After a few quiet years on the tablet front in 2001 Bill Gates introduced
Microsofts newest device and coined the name “tablet PC.” He predicted that within 5 years the
tablet PC would be the most popular computer device sold in the United States. This technology
layed the groundwork for what tablet PCs are today. (Hancock, 2002) While those in the
medical and business community saw use for these tablets there was very little interest by the
general public. Microsoft was ahead of its time by almost a decade in theory, however poor
software design and hardware that was not built from the ground up caused these devices to
never really become popular for