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The iPad's Progenitor — 123 Years Ago

Posted by timothy on from the expensive-tic-tac-toe dept.

scurtis writes "All technology evolves from cruder predecessors, and tablets are no different. People have been playing with some of the technologies underlying tablet PCs for over a century: In July 1888, for example, inventor Elisha Gray received a US patent for an electrical stylus device that captured handwriting. According to his original application, this 'telautograph' leveraged telegraph technology to send a handwritten message between a sending and receiving station."

5 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:iPad has nothing to do with handwriting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Personally I find this offensive. The article says it is so simple that a grandmother can use it. I am a 49 yo feminist grandmother and C programmer. I think I could use something more complex.

  2. Re:Lawsuit! by nitehawk214 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Till the Ark of the Covenant turns up that prior art can't be proven.

    We have top people looking into it. Top people

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  3. Re:Lawsuit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Pretty sure "looking into it" is what got all those people's faces melted off.

  4. I Thought... by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought that the iPad's progenitor was the Etch A Sketch.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  5. Re:Lawsuit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, he was at least a Psalm.

    Psalm Pilot.