The tablet computing product
Now that we’ve covered the tablet computing concept, it’s time to move on the meat of the matter: the first tablet computing product. While digital tablets and handwriting recognition had been in development for decades before it, including desktop computers which used them as the sole input method, the GRiDpad was the first, real, tangible tablet computer as we would recognise it – although it’s a little unclear as to what its specifications were. It was released in 1989; 12 years before the Windows XP tablets, and 4 years before the Newton.
The specifications (according to Steve Flynn at DigiBarn, who worked on the development of the device) for the device were rather impressive. It sported a 386SL 20MHz processor assisted by a 80387SX coprocessor, with 20MB RAM and a 40, 60, 80 or 120MB hard drive (Update: another set of specs sounds more realistic: 2MB of RAM). It weighed 2.26kg, and measured in at 29.2×23.6×3.76cm, which was incredibly light and compact for the time. It had a 10″ backlit VGA display with 32 grayscales, PCMCIA slot, built-in fax/modem, floppy drive port, and a standard keyboard port. Its NiCad battery could power the device for 3 hours.
Even though the operating system on the GRiDpad was MS-DOS, it had its own software solutions built on top to take advantage of the stylus input system, written in GRiDtask, a high-level programming language specifically developed by Jeff Hawkins for GRiD. “It was what would today be called a ‘RAD,’ or Rapid Application Development language,” said Geoff Walker, who worked at GRiD at the time, “Jeff’s GRiDTask language was an essential element of this in that it allowed us to create simple applications very quickly.”
Interestingly, Pen Computing Magazine recalls a different set of specifications, which are slightly less impressive, stating it had a 10MHz 80C86, a CGA (640×400) display, and used 256 or 512KB battery-backed RAM cards as storage. Both are valuable sources, so either the truth lies somewhere in the middle, or they made different models. It could also be that the model described by Pen Computing Magazine was a prototype of some sorts.
In any case, it was brought to market, making it the first actual tablet computer. It wasn’t Apple, it wasn’t Microsoft – no, it was GRiD Systems, bought by Tandy only two years earlier. Jeff Hawkins, father of the GRiDpad, went even further, and in mid-1990 he pitched an idea to GRiD’s top management that was deemed too risky. Hawkins left GRiD with a license to use the software they had developed, and in 1992 he founded Palm. Imperare sibi maximum imperium est.
After GRiD, GO Computing was the next company to unveil its take on the tablet by introducing the PenPoint operating system in 1991 (it didn’t actually ship until 1992). The PenPoint operating system was designed from the ground-up for pen-based input, used a set of standard gestures all throughout the operating system and its applications, and introduced the notebook GUI metaphor.
PenPoint shipped on a number of devices, such as the EO Communicator, the ThinkPad 700T, the NCR 3125, and several systems by GRiD. Many of these tablets could dual-boot between PenPoint and PenWindows. Windows? As in Microsoft?
Yes, as in Microsoft. Soon after Microsoft heard of GO and PenPoint (GO had been a media darling ever since it was founded in 1987), the company developed Windows for Pen Computing 1.0 (or PenWindows for short) as an add-on for Windows 3.x, later followed by version 2.0 for Windows 95. PenWindows evolved into Windows XP Tablet Edition in the early 2000s. In any case, PenWindows actually pre-dates the Newton, so you could say that if the world revolved around Apple and Microsoft (as many seem to believe these days), Microsoft was first.
GO Corporation wasn’t particularly happy about PenWindows, and in 2005, GO’s founder sued Microsoft (more here) for stealing technology that had been shown to them under a non-disclosure agreement. In addition, it was claimed that Microsoft used “incentives and threats” to force several manufacturers to not use PenPoint. Oh how delightfully surprising.
Asking questions
As you can see, the history of tablet computing dates much further back in time than whatever Paul Thurrot and John Gruber seem to think. I can hardly blame them, though – they are both enthusiastic supporters of their respective companies of choice, and as such, they focus on the products put forth by these companies. Still, I would expect a bit more historical sense from these famous bloggers.
The fact of the matter is that it was Apple nor Microsoft who was at the forefront of tablet computing innovation. Much of the conceptual work was done decades earlier, and the first actual tablet computing products were developed and introduced years before the Newton and PenWindows were even twinkles in the eyes of Cupertino and Redmond.
This is not very surprising. Contrary to what fancy gadget blogs and forum commenters want to believe, neither Apple nor Microsoft are very innovative companies. Both of them are businesses, which means they take other people’s ideas, assemble them, and turn them into something that can sit on a shelf and earn money. That’s called business sense, and it’s a very, very valuable skill – but it’s not innovation.
Innovation is when people come up with new ideas for the first time, which is incredibly hard. Only a lucky few can truly call themselves “innovators”. Some innovators take it all a step further, and come up with innovative solutions for problems that pop up only decades later. These people not only think of the answer – but also the question. They are the visionaries.
Microsoft and Apple don’t ask questions; they merely answer them.
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.