Before 1950
1888: U.S. Patent granted to Elisha Gray on electrical stylus device for capturing handwriting.
1915: U.S. Patent on handwriting recognition user interface with a stylus.
1942: U.S. Patent on touchscreen for handwriting input.
1945: Vannevar Bush proposes the Memex, a data archiving device including handwriting input, in an essay As We May Think.
1950s
Tom Dimond demonstrates the Styalator electronic tablet with pen for computer input and handwriting recognition.
Early 1960s
RAND Tablet invented.
Late 1960s
Alan Kay of Xerox PARC proposed a notebook using pen input called Dynabook: however device is never constructed.
1982
Pencept of Waltham, Massachusetts markets a general-purpose computer terminal using a tablet and handwriting recognition instead of a keyboard and mouse.
Cadre System markets the Inforite point-of-sale terminal using handwriting recognition and a small electronic tablet and pen.
1985:
Pencept and CIC both offer PC computers for the consumer market using a tablet and handwriting recognition instead of a keyboard and mouse. Operating system is MS-DOS.
1989
The first commercially available tablet-type portable computer was the GRiDPad from GRiD Systems, released in September. Its operating system was based on MS-DOS.
Wang Laboratories introduces Freestyle. Freestyle was an application that would do a screen capture from an MS-DOS application, and let the user add voice and handwriting annotations. It was a sophisticated predecessor to later note-taking applications for systems like the Tablet PC. The operating system was MS-DOS
1991
The Momenta Pentop was released.
GO Corp announced a dedicated operating system, called PenPoint OS, featuring control of the operating system desktop via handwritten gesture shapes.
NCR released model 3125 pen computer running MS-DOS, Penpoint or Pen Windows.
The Apple Newton entered development; although it ultimately became a PDA, its original concept (which called for a larger screen and greater sketching capabilities) resembled that of a tablet PC.
1992
GO Corp shipped PenPoint and IBM announced IBM 2125 pen computer (the first IBM model named "ThinkPad") in April.
Microsoft releases Windows for Pen Computing as a response to the PenPoint OS.
1993
The IBM releases the ThinkPad, IBM's first commercialized portable tablet computer product available to the consumer market, as the IBM ThinkPad 750P and 360P
AT&T introduced the EO Personal Communicator combining PenPoint with wireless communications.
1999
The "QBE" pen computer created by Aqcess Technologies wins Comdex Best of Show.
2000
The "QBE Vivo" pen computer created by Aqcess Technologies ties for Comdex Best of Show.
2001
Bill Gates of Microsoft demonstrates first public prototype of a Tablet PC (defined by Microsoft as a pen-enabled computer conforming to hardware specifications devised by Microsoft and running a licensed copy of the "Windows XP Tablet PC Edition" operating system) at Comdex.
2006
Windows Vista released for general availability. Vista included the functionality of the special Tablet PC edition of Windows XP.
2008
In April 2008, as part of a larger federal court case, the gesture features of the Windows/Tablet PC operating system and hardware were found to infringe on a patent by GO Corp. concerning user interfaces for pen computer operating systems.
HP releases the second MultiTouch capable tablet: the HP TouchSmart tx2z.
2009
Asus announced a tablet netbook.
Always Innovating announced an AMR CPU will be used in a new tablet netbook.
