Be it Apple iPad, Blackberry Playbook, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Motorola Xoom, tablet computers are hot right now. A PC tablet is essentially a wireless and portable personal computer in the form of a notebook or a slate. It allows users to interact with just with their fingers or with a stylus or digital pen on a touchscreen. Although iPad has popularized the concept of tablet computing only recently, the tablet computers have been around since late 1980’s.
Tablet Computers in Early Days
In the 1980’s many technology companies entered the tablet devices market. GRiD Systems Corporation introduced the first portable tablet called the GRiDPad. The tablet operating systems available then were PenPoint OS by GO Corporation, Windows for Pen Computing by Microsoft, Apple’s Newton and the like.
The early tablets included Cambridge Z88, Linus Write-Top, GRiDPad, Fujitsu’s PoqetPad and the like. James from Android Tablet Fanatic has published a wonderful infographic that pictures the evolution of tablet computers since late 1980’s.
The early tablets were rather expensive to make and bulky. They had very limited memory and limited functionality. Todays tablets have evolved to provide vast memory, speed and multitude of functionality. Most common operating systems are Apple OSX, Android, Windows7 etc. There are apps for almost everyone. There are numerous apps on just about any topic and for almost everyone, be it social media or finance and accounting, be it businesses or students.
An Interesting Video About Evolution of Tablet Computers
An interesting Tablet Evolution video from Motorola (which was released as a teaser for Motorola Xoom) in fact suggests the concept of tablet existed since thousands of years.
The real tablet computers which could actually compute offcourse came in only recently in late 1980’s as discussed earlier.
