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The Linus Write-Top is an early tablet computer released by Linus Technologies, Inc., of Reston, Virginia, in July 1988. It was the first tablet computer released to the public with a pen input and handwriting recognition software. The Write-Top is compatible with software for the IBM PC and runs an Intel 8088 microprocessor. Although innovative, the Write-Top was a commercial flop, and Linus Technologies folded less than two years after its introduction.
Development
Linus Technologies, Inc., was established in 1985 in Reston, Virginia, by Ralph Sklarew, Robert Nadeau, and Arthur Rodbell. The company was founded chiefly to market the Write-Top, which was largely the brainchild of Sklarew and Nadeau. Before founding Linus, Sklarew had worked as a developer of environmental monitoring systems for institutions such as NASA and has founded a company that marketed such systems for chemical plants in 1977. Nadeau, meanwhile, was a professor of English at George Mason University who was next-door neighbors with Sklarew in Virginia. In the early 1980s, Sklarew discovered that Nadeau had been working on a prototype for an electronic book reader in his home and expressed interest in developing the concept further into a commercial product. The two developed a system for digitizing handwriting for the IBM PC programmed in GW-BASIC, eventually delivering a prototype to venture capitalists. Development stalled for a year and a half until the duo met Arthur Rodbell, who had experience in raising seed capital and marketing for various companies. In late 1984, the three raised $11 million in funding from Venture First of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and in early 1985, Linus Technologies was founded. In 1986, the company hired Richard Mier, the recently departed vice president of marketing of Atari Corporation, to become Linus' president and CEO.
Sklarew, Nadeau, and others spent several years developing the Write-Top, with the final execution rendered by the industrial designer Peter H. Muller of Inter4m. Originally devised as a single-piece device, the final Write-Top was ultimately built out of two pieces, the system unit and the pen-enabled display; however, the two can be latched together to approximate a self-contained tablet. The Write-Top was publicly unveiled in March 1988.
References
- ^ Atkinson, Paul (Autumn 2008). "A Bitter Pill to Swallow: The Rise and Fall of the Tablet Computer" (PDF). Design Issues. 24 (4). MIT Press: 3–25.
- Delbourg-Delphis, Marylène (2024). Beyond Eureka!: The Rocky Roads to Innovating. Georgetown University Press. p. 168. ISBN 9781647124229 – via Google Books.
- ^ Hamilton, Patricia (January 1989). "Handwriting goes high tech". D&B Reports. 37 (1). Dun and Bradstreet, Inc.: 20–23 – via ProQuest.
- Lazar, Jerry (March 14, 1988). "Linus trains computers to read handwriting". Computer Systems News (357). UBM LLC: 24 – via Gale.