Pen Computing - History

History

Pen computing has very deep historical roots. The depth of these roots can be quite surprising to people who are only familiar with current commercial products. For example, the first patent for an electronic tablet used for handwriting, the telautograph, was granted in 1888. What is probably the first patent for a system that recognized handwritten characters by analyzing the handwriting motion was granted in 1915. The first publicly demonstrated system using a tablet and handwriting text recognition instead of a keyboard for working with a modern digital computer dates to 1956.

In addition to many academic and research systems, there were several companies with commercial products in the 1980s: Pencept, Communications Intelligence Corporation, and Linus were among the best known of a crowded field. Later, GO Corp. brought out the PenPoint OS operating system for a tablet PC product: one of the patents from GO corporation was the subject of recent infringement lawsuit concerning the Tablet PC operating system.

The following timeline list gives some of the highlights of this history:

• Before 1950
  • 1888: U.S. Patent granted to Elisha Gray on electrical stylus device for capturing handwriting.
  • 1915: U.S. Patent on handwriting recognition user interface with a stylus.
  • 1942: U.S. Patent on touchscreen for handwriting input.
  • 1945: Vannevar Bush proposes the Memex, a data archiving device including handwriting input, in an essay As We May Think.
• 1950s
  • Tom Dimond demonstrates the Styalator electronic tablet with pen for computer input and handwriting recognition.
• Early 1960s
  • RAND Tablet invented.

• Late 1960s
  • Alan Kay of Xerox PARC proposed a notebook using pen input called Dynabook: however device is never constructed.
• 1982
  • Pencept of Waltham, Massachusetts markets a general-purpose computer terminal using a tablet and handwriting recognition instead of a keyboard and mouse.
  • Cadre System markets the Inforite point-of-sale terminal using handwriting recognition and a small electronic tablet and pen.
• 1985:
  • Pencept and CIC both offer PC computers for the consumer market using a tablet and handwriting recognition instead of a keyboard and mouse. Operating system is MS-DOS.

• 1989
  • The first commercially available tablet-type portable computer was the GRiDPad from GRiD Systems, released in September. Its operating system was based on MS-DOS.
  • Wang Laboratories introduces Freestyle. Freestyle was an application that would do a screen capture from an MS-DOS application, and let the user add voice and handwriting annotations. It was a sophisticated predecessor to later note-taking applications for systems like the Tablet PC. The operating system was MS-DOS
• 1991
  • The Momenta Pentop was released.
  • GO Corp announced a dedicated operating system, called PenPoint OS, featuring control of the operating system desktop via handwritten gesture shapes. Gestures included "flick" gestures in different directions, check-marks, cross-outs, pig-tails, and circular shapes, among others.
  • Portia Isaacsen of Future Computing estimates the total annual market for pen computers such as those running the PenPoint OS to be on the order of $500 Million.
  • NCR released model 3125 pen computer running MS-DOS, Penpoint or Pen Windows.
  • The Apple Newton entered development; although it ultimately became a PDA, its original concept (which called for a larger screen and greater sketching capabilities) resembled that of a tablet PC.
  • Sam Tramiel of Atari Corp. presented the "ST-Pad" (codenamed "STylus") at the CeBIT '91 in Hanover, Germany. The computer never went into production.
• 1992
  • GO Corp shipped PenPoint and IBM announced IBM 2125 pen computer (the first IBM model named "ThinkPad") in April.
  • Microsoft releases Windows for Pen Computing as a response to the PenPoint OS.
• 1993
  • The IBM releases the ThinkPad, IBM's first commercialized portable tablet computer product available to the consumer market, as the IBM ThinkPad 750P and 360P
  • Apple Computer announces the Newton PDA, also known as the Apple MessagePad, which includes handwriting recognition with a stylus.
  • Amstrad release the "Pen Pad" or PDA6000, a similar pen-based device. It did not achieve commercial success.
  • AT&T introduced the EO Personal Communicator combining PenPoint with wireless communications.
  • BellSouth released the IBM Simon Personal Communicator, an analog cellphone using a touch-screen and display. It did not include handwriting recognition, but did permit users to write messages and send them as faxes on the analog cellphone network, and included PDA and Email features.
• 1999
  • The "QBE" pen computer created by Aqcess Technologies wins Comdex Best of Show.
• 2000
  • The "QBE Vivo" pen computer created by Aqcess Technologies ties for Comdex Best of Show.
• 2001
  • Bill Gates of Microsoft demonstrates first public prototype of a Tablet PC (defined by Microsoft as a pen-enabled computer conforming to hardware specifications devised by Microsoft and running a licensed copy of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition) at Comdex.
• 2003
  • FingerWorks develops the touch technology and touch gestures later used in the Apple iPhone.

• 2006
  • Windows Vista released for general availability. Vista included the functionality of the special Tablet PC edition of Windows XP.

• 2008
  • In April 2008, as part of a larger federal court case, the gesture features of the Windows/Tablet PC operating system and hardware were found to infringe on a patent by GO Corp. concerning user interfaces for pen computer operating systems. Microsoft's acquisition of the technology is the subject of a separate lawsuit.
  • HP releases the second MultiTouch capable tablet: the HP TouchSmart tx2z.