Thurrot made his remarks in a short post on his blog right before CES, when it was revealed that Steve Ballmer would debut a new tablet computer made by HP. “I can now reveal that Microsoft and its PC maker partners will announce and then deliver their own Tablet PC well before Apple. And I have an exclusive photo of a prototype of this unbelievable, trend-setting, and innovative product,” Thurrot wrote, “From 2001. The devices shipped in 2002. Almost eight years ago.”
Yesterday, John Gruber argued that if you really want to dive into who was the first with the tablet computer, the credit should go to Apple. “Even if you’re only concerned about who was first, shouldn’t that credit go to Apple, for the Newton MessagePad that first shipped in 1993?” Gruber wonders in his piece called “The Original Tablet“.
Well, no. They’re both wrong. Both Microsoft and Apple were late to the game when it comes to tablet computing, and so far, neither of the two companies have been able to popularise the paradigm in any meaningful way – but boy, did they try. Later this month, Apple could unveil a tablet that will finally jumpstart this so far insignificant market, but up until then, their best attempt is an admittedly cool device that was far ahead of its time – but failed, nonetheless.
The tablet computing concept
If you want to dive into the history of the tablet computing paradigm, you must first separate the concept from the product. It’s not uncommon in the world of computing (or any field, for that matter) for concepts to be much older than the first actual product, but in the case of the tablet it’s all rather obvious.
The first complete concept of a tablet computer was the DynaBook, conceptualised by Alan Kay in the late 1960s and early 1970s in his article “A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages” (much more information about the DynaBook here). The DynaBook was not just a tablet form-factor computer long before even the laptop appeared on the scene – Kay also described several ideas that would become commonplace only decades later.
The DynaBook was to be a tablet-style computer aimed at learning and gathering information. Kay envisioned that DynaBooks could connect wirelessly to centralised information storages, and could “abstract” information from those storages. It was about the size of a notepad, with a hardware keyboard at the bottom, and a screen at the top (using “liquid crystal”, a brand-new technology back then). It could also play audio files, record voice memos, and much, much more.
So far, it sounds like a tablet, but you are all wondering where the stylus comes in. Apart from printing the word “stylus” in one the illustrations, there’s no further mention of it in the article. In fact Kay takes it all a few steps further: he basically describes a multitouch display. In 1972. That’s almost 40 years ago.
Suppose the display panel covers the full extent of the notebook surface. Any keyboard arrangement one might wish can then be displayed anywhere on the surface. Four strain gauges mounted under the corners of the panel will register the position of any touch to within 3/16″ which is close enough. The bottom portion of the display panel can be textured in various ways to permit touch typing. This arrangement allows the font in which one is typing to be shown on the keys, special characters can be windowed, and user identifiers can be selected with one touch.
The DynaBook is the first tablet computer concept, but it is so much more. The ideas underlying the software of the DynaBook are based on then-new insights from psychology on how children learn and develop, from articles written by people like Omar K. Moore, Seymour Papert, and Jean Piaget.
“A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages” should be required reading material for anyone interested in computing. We often claim that people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are visionaries, but they don’t hold a candle to the likes of Alan Kay and Douglas Engelbart. These last two are people who thought up concepts and ideas that would only become possible and widespread decades after, whereas Jobs and Gates are businessmen, who take existing ideas and come up with ways to trick us into buying those technologies. Having good business sense is admirable – but it hardly makes you a visionary.
The DynaBook most likely wasn’t the only tablet computer concept, but it is one of the most well-known. As a side note, the different components of tablet computing had been in development since long before the DynaBook; stylus input specifically has origins dating back to 1888 (!).
By the way, look at this gem from Kay’s DynaBook article about storing books on the DynaBook bought from vending machines: “The ability to make copies easily and to “own” one’s information will probably not debilitate existing markets, just as easy xerography has enhanced publishing (rather than hurting it as some predicted), and as tapes have not damaged the LP record business but have provided a way to organise one’s own music.”
120MB of storage? In 1989? On a portable-ish device? At that time that was not “rather impressive”, that was science-fiction. There must be a mistake in that.
Edit: 20MB of RAM!!! My PC of the era (or was it 90 or 91-ish when dad bought it…?) had 2MB. Someone explain to me what I am missing.
Edited 2010-01-15 16:34 UTC
Exactly – the specifications are a bit of a grey area there. Maybe one of our readers have experience with the GRiDpad?
This link seems to be more realistic, bet really, who knows:
http://www.sinasohn.com/cgi-bin/clascomp/bldhtm.pl?computer=grid191…
Ach! I had a friend that had the gridpad, for the life of me, I can’t remember the specs. Maybe it will come after lunch.
I do have a 286 grid laptop with 2mb ram, that cannot run linux, despite my best efforts with elks.
http://elks.sourceforge.net/
Of course, it was a wooden one, but it came complete with a stylus.
The tablets were better shown in TNG.
I disagree with the use of merely. Think of the MP3 player. People think Apple invented it. Nope! There were many players – the RIO comes to mind. But, Apple made them cool, easy to use. One of the reasons my son went back to Windows from Linux was the seamless syncing of iTunes. He wanted to just connect his device and click “fill”, not manually drag and drop stuff.
Anyhoo, I think all of these are important:
Innovator – comes up with an idea
Implementer – creates a working version of the idea, perhaps brings to market
Perfector – the one who runs with thing and brings it to the masses.
All are useful functions. Unfortunately, usually only the last one gets rich, unless one of the other two sues!
I completely agree. Innovation/implementation is great but quite risky. I can think of a good number of innovative things that were actually implemented but failed. I can think of some polished things that basically came to market after a lot of the hard work, trial and error, were done and exploded (getting more credit than they deserved for it). We all can.
Its nice to read about the innovators and implementors. Nice to know who we “owe” for what we’re enjoying today and will enjoy in the future.
I would like to add one more thing (and forgive me if I fumble this): the Derivers. After all, how many different implementations of any given type of application are out there? Nice, polished, but not the first? Regardless of its some company trying to do their own take on a particular product or an open source project to make something, they’re putting their own spin on an existing, polished, product. I use a bit of open source stuff that is not innovative in the least (save its OSS :p) but honestly I don’t care. Its good, its polished, and it lets me do what I want to without grossly overspending for my needs!
There’s a place for all these things, and I think we’re better off for it.
with the iPod, Apple just didn’t make a ‘stylish’ product, lets ignore the wheel and how unique it was and an actual LCD screen with an interface (the previous Rios just had forward/next/etc buttons), but the iPod had a real nice 5GB 1.8″ HD which nobody else on the market even used.
Thanks for this. I enjoyed reading the article and will look into this more.
A very good article indeed!
Thank you very much Thom. I only wish more sites could publish such high quality articles.
[I am looking at you, clueless Nokia-hating blog-monkeys at E********]
Edited 2010-01-15 20:08 UTC
Your timing is amazing. When I woke up this morning, in that weird state between asleep and awake, I realized that Alan Kay’s Dynabook was a tablet PC in a way. And Steve Jobs convinced Kay to come work for Apple as an advisor, becoming an Apple Fellow at one point.
This “MacDynaBook” has been a long time coming.
I might as well write it down somewhere…
I think Apples’ mystery product will be completely unexpected: a digital picture frame.
Well, not an ordinary one. I looked at them a year ago, and the user interfaces all, completely and without exception, suck. Some suck more than others, but compared to the user interface of a non-digital picture frame (insert picture, put on table, look, enjoy), they are all crap.
Much like the original MP3 players, actually.
This kind of explains the size rumours – some say Apple will introduce a 7 inch, some say 10 inch tablet. Those are nice picture frame sizes, but useless for a portable media player (too big for a pocket purse) and for a computer (fully functional, general purpose tablet computers themselves are impractically bad ideas, at least with forseeable software).
Of course, it would be more than a picture frame. A usage scenario would go like this: You get one, network it to your Mac/PC (running iTunes or iPhoto), and set it on your kitchen table, where it displays pictures you can select with the touch screen, or the time/day/iCal appointments and pictures on the side, etc. Say you sit down for breakfast, you can grab it out of the cradle (plugged into the wall to recharge it, like a portable phone) and touch it to open up the morning paper, or news web site, or streaming/podcast news from iTunes. Eat and enjoy. Put it back in the cradle when done.
Say it’s the weekend, you want to sit ouside and read a book. Pick up the “iSlate” and a cup of coffee and touch up a book you bought. Go back inside when it reminds you of an appointment – or maybe it’s integrated with your home phone (maybe just notify you, or maybe it has a speakerphone capability).
It’s “portable”, but not meant to actually ever leave your house, so it doesn’t matter that it has a power-sucking LCD display, compared to the powerless “e-paper” displays of e-book readers.
Etc. A very Apple-like, convenient product that nobody seems to realize that is missing from their lives. But it has a market of millions.
> A very Apple-like, convenient product that nobody seems to realize that is missing from their lives. But it has a market of millions.
Slow down. Steve Jobs has blown it before: Not everybody thought they could not live without an iCube or iPod Hi-Fi.
Like you hinted, we are more in love with “falling in love with the gadget” than actually the gadget itself.
The hype is high because many people think Apple can convince us of wanting to use something we still do not know what we would want for. They still have to pull that off.
What impresses me the most about the Dynabook is its timeless design. The compact package and dimensions (screen and keyboard) would be considered a solid piece of industrial design just about anytime since Mr. Kay introduced the concept circa 1970.
I would actually love to see a device of the exact appearance implemented with the today’s technology With a right mix of hardware (nothing over-the-top) and battery autonomy it could be a winner.
Now the software is of course another matter. The idea of a fully customisable, totally transparent user interface and programming environment in one looks a bit hard to achieve with today operating systems. It reminds me more of the home computers of the 1980s – instant power-on and ready to accept commands. That would be probably the hardest nut to crack. Other than that this could as well be the “proper” OLPC
Edited 2010-01-15 20:43 UTC
In terms to people thinking of it first, I believe the idea showed up years if not decades before in SF.
Since I don’t have the books here I can’t check right now, but what about the calculator used in ‘Foundation’ or the MiniSec in Clarke’s ‘TriCentenuary’ (spelling wrong)
it doesn’t matter who was first, neither one took off because the infrastructure and the content didn’t exist in a way though would be truly beneficial for mass production and consumer demand.
Its a lot like Sega. The Saturn and the Dreamcast were wayyyyy ahead of their time as far as features and usability. the Sega Saturn could hook up to the internet and that was in 1995!
the world is ready now though, and it will catch on in a big way. no sense in playing the “i was first into a market sector that didn’t take off when i was first” game. a better game would be “I am going to make the best damn tablet you’ve ever seen” game and release them in 2010.
> The Saturn and the Dreamcast were wayyyyy ahead of their time as far as features and usability.
Dreamcast, ok. Saturn, no man. Hardware-wise, Sony embarrased the heck out of Sega on launch day.
Wasn’t the problem with the Saturn that it was hard to program? With the 4-meg RAM cartridge you could play X-men Vs. Street Fighter with the tag-team feature intact, unlike the PS version.
the saturn was hard to develope for because of the many processors in it (iirc 2 cpu, 2 gpu, 1 sound)
but still it was the more advenced console of the time (the shenmue video is realy impressive)
but it’s funny how sony with their ps2/3 ran into the same problem as sega: gamedevelopers can’t handle more than 1 cpu
… there’s just no way you can compare the Apple Newton and the Tablet PC as if they were equals. The Newton was a glorified message taker. That’s it. The Tablet PC is a full-blown operating system with the ability to run thousands of apps, connect peripherals, project presentations, etc. So, really, arguments to the contrary over who was first are idiotic to the extreme.
Every time there is an article on tablets people forget about the Atari Stylus, aka ST-Pad:
http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/16bits/stpad.html
Oh, that’s cool! Never knew about those before!
Whoever claimed that the Newton was the “first tablet PC” must have been smoking something.
The Newton had a “message pad” form factor – MUCH more vertical resolution than horizontal. The Newton was a hand-held machine, a Personal Digital Assistant, or the ancestor of the Palm Pilot and the iPhone.
A tablet PC is a completely different form factor altogether.
so what? you can rotate the screen. the aspect ratio ist similar to a widescreen. and why should a tablet-pc have the same screen aspect ratio as a desktop screen or a laptopscreen anyway?
I own the above system, it was relased in 1991 or 1992. It also uses 386SX processor, shipped with PenPoint (which does not work any longer since it is not y2k compliant
, but Widnows 3.1 for Pen works fine. It is actually still usable for playing Solitaire and Minesweeper. 
We demand pictures
.
Someone please mention if not already the General Magic products from the early 90s. Way, way ahead of their time.
I know the Newton predates the Stylistic series, but it was a PDA not a full blown computer. The Stylistic “pen computers” from Fujitsu were great machines for their time (the mid to late ’90s). I had a model 1000 purchased on eBay for about $70 back in 2001. It was a project for my then girlfriend who was big into Serial Experiments: Lain and wanted something like the NaviComp used in the series.
It was quite underpowered hardware for the time, but I had some experience with modding the iOpener so I set to it and eventually had a pretty impressive portable touchscreen BSD box. It was bulky and heavy but was always meant as a novelty anyway. I think the later Stylistics were much better of course, and apart from the Axiotron Modbook I doubt you’ll find a better representation of the form factor these days.
At least until the end of January, if the rumors are to be believed.
why not? the first newton was more powerful than the first macs or pc-at (20 mhz arm6), the last newton probably about as powerful as your stylistic 1000 (166 mhz strongarm vs. 100 mhz 486dx2). because yiu don’t like the formfactor? or because it doesn’t run a desktop os?
And my BlackBerry cell phone is more powerful than the Newton, or indeed any computer made before 1998 and any PDA more than a couple years old. Raw processing power does not a full-blown personal computer make, though I will concede that the definition of personal computing is changing more rapidly these days. We’re talking about the mid to late 90s though.
My point wasn’t to dis the Newton; I wanted one back then too. But the Newton couldn’t run desktop class software, and really never needed to. It served a specific purpose and did so, in my opinion, very well. The Stylistic and other similar systems, on the other hand, were designed to take your desktop apps with you on the road, and they did so very well. With Windows 95 and BSD on the Stylistic, we had a highly mobile computer with capabilities far beyond even the best PDAs of the time, with few caveats (battery life and bulkiness most prominent).
As I said before, if the rumors hold true then Apple has found the magic middle ground between underpowered PDA and bulky PC tablet. I can’t wait to see it.