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A Brief History of Tablet PCs
In the late 1980s, early pen computer systems generated a lot of
excitement and there was a time when it was thought they might
eventually replace conventional computers with keyboards. After
all, everyone knows how to use a pen and pens are certainly less
intimidating than keyboards.
Pen computers, as envisioned in the 1980s, were built around
handwriting recognition. In the early 1980s, handwriting
recognition was seen as an important future technology. Nobel
prize winner Dr. Charles Elbaum started Nestor and developed the
NestorWriter handwriting recognizer. Communication Intelligence
Corporation created the Handwriter recognition system, and there
were many others.
In 1991, the pen computing hype was at a peak. The pen was seen
as a challenge to the mouse, and pen computers as a replacement
for desktops. Microsoft, seeing slates as a potentially serious
competition to Windows computers, announced Pen Extensions for
Windows 3.1 and called them Windows for Pen Computing. Microsoft
made some bold predictions about the advantages and success of
pen systems that would take another ten years to even begin to
materialize. In 1992, products arrived. GO Corporation released
PenPoint. Lexicus released the Longhand handwriting recognition
system. Microsoft released Windows for Pen Computing. Between
1992 and 1994, a number of companies introduced hardware to run
Windows for Pen Computing or PenPoint. Among them were EO, NCR,
Samsung, Dauphin, Fujitsu, TelePad, Compaq, Toshiba, and IBM.
Few people remember that the original IBM ThinkPad was, as the
name implies, slate computers.
The computer press was first enthusiastic, then very critical
when pen computers did not sell. They measured pen computers
against desktop PCs with Windows software and most of them found
pen tablets difficult to use. They also criticized handwriting
recognition and said it did not work. After that, pen computer
companies failed. Momenta closed in 1992. They had used up US$40
million in venture capital. Samsung and NCR did not introduce
new products. Pen pioneer GRiD was bought by AST for its
manufacturing capacity. AST stopped all pen projects. Dauphin,
which was started by a Korean businessman named Alan Yong, went
bankrupt, owing IBM over $40 million. GO was taken over by AT&T,
and AT&T closed the company in August
1994 (after the memorable
"fax on the beach" TV commercials). GO had lost almost US$70
million in venture capital. Compaq, IBM, NEC, and Toshiba all
stopped making consumer market pen products in 1994 and 1995.
By 1995, pen computing was dead in the consumer market.
Microsoft made a half-hearted attempt at including "Pen
Services" in Windows 95, but slate computers had gone away, at
least in consumer markets. It lived on in vertical and
industrial markets. Companies such as Fujitsu Personal Systems,
Husky, Telxon, Microslate, Intermec, Symbol Technologies,
Xplore, and WalkAbout made and sold many pen tablets and pen
slates.
That was, however, not the end of pen computing. Bill Gates had
always been a believer in the technology, and you can see slate
computers in many of Microsoft's various "computing in the
future" presentations over the years. Once Microsoft
reintroduced pen computers as the "Tablet PC" in 2002, slates
and notebook convertibles made a comeback, and new companies
such as Motion Computing joined the core of vertical and
industrial market slate computers specialists.
The primary reason why the Microsoft-specification Tablet PC is
reasonably successful whereas earlier attempts were not has two
reasons. First, the technology required for a pen slate simply
wasn't there in the early 1990s. And second, the pen
visionaries' idea of replacing keyboard input with handwriting
(and voice) recognition turned out to be far more difficult than
anticipated. There were actually some very good recognizers that
are still being used today, but they all require training and a
good degree of adaptation by the user. You can't just scribble
on the screen and the computer magically understands everything.
With the Tablet PC, Microsoft downplayed handwriting recognition
in favor of "digital ink" as a new data type. This was a very
wise decision.
About the author:
Conrad Blickenstorfer is the publisher of the premier website on
Rugged PCs, http://www.ruggedpcreview.com, and the long-time
editor-in-chief of Pen Computing Magazine
(http://www.pencomputing.com). He continues to be on the cutting
edge of Rugged PC and Handheld Computing technology. This
article may be disseminated on the Web providing the
biographical blurb and the link to http://www.ruggedpcreview.com
remains in place.
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