To be perfectly honest, I don’t have inside information as to when or where the handheld computing “revolution” all started. These are my thoughts based on being an early and enthusiastic user of handhelds. As time goes, I hope that people with inside information can contribute to this page by adding their own stories and anecdotes (it’s easy, just use the contact form).
To understand how PDAs came about, I think we need to look at the computing and organiser landscape just before the first PDAs where invented. In those days, the PC had been around just for a short while and it started to become clear that this was not just a toy, but something useful that many people would be having on their desks. Also around at this time where calculators, some of which were programmable (the two major brands where Texas Instruments and HP), and so called “data-banks”. A data-bank was a small calculator-like device that you used to store things like telephone-numbers and addresses in. The memory was quite limited (2KB was a common size), and the type of information you could store was pre-set. For planning, people tended to carry around organisers/time-planners, such as Filofax. (As a matter of interest, the Filofax is really a quite old innovation, look at this interesting page).
Someone must have said to himself: “What if we combine the programmability of the calculators, the alphanumeric display of the databanks and the versatility of the PC and put everything in something the size of a organizer?” The idea of the handheld computer was born. Different companies were coming to the same idea from different angles; Some of the pioneers were Sharp and Casio – two japanese companies that dominated the databank space, Psion who I think started with the idea of the handheld computer and HP who was one of the dominating calculator vendors (and also a PC maker). Apple on the other hand was a successful PC maker (yes, we do call a Mac a Personal Computer) and had some revolutionary ideas of a handheld computer that would not only be a scaled-down version of a desktop computer, but would help people manage their schedules and to communicate. Apple called their entry into the handheld computing market the Personal Digital Assistant – PDA.
But let’s take one step back again and look at some of the very early examples of handheld computers:
Psion, a British company, made a calculator-like device that could also deal with alphanumeric data. You could best describe it as a mix between a databank and a programmable calculator. The important difference between the Organiser and a databank was that the format of the data was not pre-set – you could create any type of database you liked, and in addition you could enhance the built-in software with add-on cartridges containing software in ROM. One of the main drawbacks of this early machine was the display which was limited to one (!) line of 40 characters. It’s follow-up Organiser 2 had two lines, making it much more usable, but it was not until the Psion 3 that we got something that more resembled a full-blown computer that you could carry around. The Psion 3 was the first PDA that I owned and used myself. Psion created its own operating system for these devices which was much more advanced than the then dominating operating system for PCs – DOS. Psions OS could multitask and was 16-bit (from Psion 3 and onwards).
Atari, a famous arcade-game maker, wanted to create a handheld device that could run exactly the same software as its grown-up counterpart, the DOS based PC, could. Their entry was called Atari Portfolio and it runs a ROMable version of DOS. This machine could be enhanced further by adding a serial and/or parallel port, more memory, a floppy disk unit etc. Its display was limited to alfanumeric and line-drawing characters.
Palm computing, a company which background is unknown to me, and that have traded owners several times, was one of the pioneers of handheld computing and the company that actually managed to make the PDA very popular among ordinary people. Its main benefits was that it didn’t have a keyboard but you used a stylus to enter the text. You had to learn a new way of writing characters though. This was (and still is) called Grafitti. Most people manged to learn Grafitti well enough in half an hour or so, so this was not a big hurdle. The PalmPilot was the first device attempting to fully replace the paper-based organisers. It had an addressbook, a calendar, a todo-list and so on. And everything was blindingly fast to search for. In fact, nothing ever since has been faster at that important aspect of information handling (except for later Palm models). Palm was probably also the first one to make its models firmware upgradeable. Stylus input, complete organiser functionality, size and price made the PalmPilot the most popular handheld computer of its days.
Apple, being a company that really invented things rather than just copying others, wanted to get into the handheld computing space and wanted to do things slightly different. They not only wanted the handheld to be a replacement for the paperbased organiser, but wanted it to do more, to help people organise their lives, to communicate and to make it simple to make notes, letters, faxes etc. To acheive all this, they needed to create a different kind of operating system that was object oriented, could understand handwriting, have audio in- and output etc. Apple actually did not design the hardware themselves, but turned to handheld pioneer Sharp for this task. The Apple Newton was quite revolutionairy when it came in 1993. However, in order to understand handwriting, it had to be limited to English (initially, later on French and German versions followed). This, and the fact that handwriting recognition at the start was less than perfect, and perhaps the fact that the operating system was so different to anything else, made Apples otherwise excellent machine less than a market success. Apple made several attempts to correct the initial problems and before deciding to discontinue its line of handheld computers in 1998, Apple made the Messagepad 2100 which had a completely revamped operating system, was excellent at handwriting recognition, had several new features and a blindingly fast CPU. Unfortunately it was too late, the market had already formed its opinion and stayed away from Apple. Except for a loyal crowed that continued to use it for quite a few years and think that nothing since has been comparable. (I happen to agree).
What about Sharp and Casio then? Both companies made several handheld computers in those early days. You could think of them as “databanks on steroids” with some programmability etc. I don’t think they became very popular though, since they did not offer any significant advantages comparted to units like the PalmPilot or Apple Newton. But we shall not forget that these companies helped other companies make successful PDAs.
Let’s not forget Hewlett Packard. HP, being a successful maker of programmable calculators and a startup PC maker had all the technology it needed to make a successful handheld computer. After some initial attempts with units running DOS, HP finally teamed up with Microsoft to create a competitor initially to Psion. But to be frank, Windows CE 1.0 was not a big hit. It was very slow and crashed frequently. Not until Microsoft released the successor to Windows CE called “Windows Mobile”, the operating system was at least as good at the ones offered by competitors Psion and Palm. (You may have a different opionon, of course). I used one of the early HP models with Windows CE 1.0, I think it was called HP LX320. This was also sourced by Ericsson (my employer for many years) and rebadged it “Ericsson Mobile Companion MC12”. Beleive me, you would not like to use one of these units…
Well, that pretty much sums up my current knowledge of the early days of handheld computing, but I am sure that you know more, so please use the contact form to add your information and anectdotes!