The IBM Simon Personal Communicator was the first attempt to market a commercially viable smartphone and was a joint venture between IBM and BellSouth. Simon was first shown as a product concept in 1992[1] at COMDEX, the communications industry trade show held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Launched in 1993[2] it combined the features of a mobile phone, a pager, a PDA, and a fax machine. After some delays it was sold by BellSouth in 1994 in 190 U.S. cities in 15 states and was originally priced at $899.[3]
Besides a mobile phone, the major applications were a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, and games. It had no physical buttons to dial with. Instead customers used a touch-screen to select phone numbers with a finger or create facsimiles and memos with an optional stylus. Text was entered with either a unique on-screen "predictive" keyboard or QWERTY keyboard. The Simon had an optional PCMCIA memory card.
The Simon smartphone appeared in the movie The Net[4]
References
- ^ Schneidawind, J: "Big Blue unveiling", USA Today, November 23, 1992, page 2B
- ^ Associated Press: "Keep it simple, Simon says", Florida Times-Union newspaper, November 3, 1993
- ^ O'Malley, C: "Simonizing the PDA", Byte Magazine, December 1994, page 145
- ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/net/, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113957
External links
- Simon Put on Hold at Find Articles.com
- IBM Simon PDA cellphone
- Simonizing the PDA, Byte.com
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