Research

Introduction By "antique" I mean modems with speeds of under 56k speed (although they don't really run this fast). This appendix compares the antique modems with the modern ones. You should read it if you are interested in modem history or are intending to actually use an antique modem. Also, many modern modems and software still support the old protocols and you might find that such old protocols have been configured by mistake.

We want to summarize the history of the mouse, the device which is so important that often it “prevents” us to use the keyboard, sometimes even we forget that computers have it.

Hawaii presented a unique challenge and opportunity for those engineers and graduate students. At the time, computers were capable of being linked, but only across a computer room floor using a cable the diameter of your thumb. The only alternative was known as Sneaker net, in which data was put onto a floppy disk or tape and carried to a distant computer, presumably by someone wearing comfortable sneakers. That was inadequate for the islands, which were separated by distance and natural barriers.

IPAD, 5TH GENERATION USER INTERFACE “In our lifetimes, we have seen at least five generations of user interfaces.”

We use computers everyday, we don't think about how it all started or how many years and hard work there is behind every program, operating system, and website, that make a computer what it is today.

We all know the Apple commercials on TV featuring Justin Long as the likable Mac Guy, who in every commercial beats out the geeky PC. Unbeknownst to many, this commercial battle started in 1984 when Macintosh created a commercial costing 1.5m, and ran it during the NFL Superbowl. This commercial directed by Ridley Scott featured the Mac destroying an IBM machine. And the war had begun.

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.

The Apple Newton MessagePad, Apple’s ‘failed’ PDA, is sitting on my desk. It’s a late model 2100, which was the last iteration Newton MessagePad to ship back in 1998. Every time I use one, I immediately think of a tablet computer, both because of its size and functionality: it’s much more than just a small, simple PDA.

Love 'em or hate 'em, tablet PCs are hot right now. But this latest development in personal computing and entertainment is nothing new, no matter how "magical" or "revolutionary" it may seem. The latest crop of tablets--including the iPad, the JooJoo, the HP Slate (to name only a few)--springs from over two centuries of research and development, starting with Elisha Gray, whose 1888 "Telautograph" (U.S. patent No. 386,815) is believed to be the forerunner to the modern tablet.

For many non-geeks, the launch of iPad was the dawn of tablet computers. Obviously that isn’t true. Even before 1950s, there were some research done on touchscreen tablets. But the first commercially available tablet computer was the GRiDPad in 1989, which was based on MS-DOS!