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Who invented the touchscreen?
DR.SAM HURSTElographics, Inc. was founded by ten stockholders in March, 1971, to produce Graphical Data Digitizers for use in research and industrial applications, with the principal being Dr. Sam Hurst. He was on leave from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to teach at the University of Kentucky for two years, where he was faced with a need to read a huge stack of strip chart data. It would have taken two graduate students approximately two months to do the task. He started thinking of a way to read the charts, and during the process, the "Elograph" (electronic graphics) coordinate measuring system and Elographics the company were born. The University of Kentucky Research Foundation applied for and was granted a patent on the Elograph. The Foundation granted an exclusive license to Elographics.Dr. G. S. "Sam" Hurst (left), founder of Elographics, Inc. The Elograph was selected by Industrial Researchas one of the 100 Most Significant New Technical Products of the Year 1973.In 1971, after returning to Oak Ridge, Dr. Hurst gathered nine friends from various areas of expertise to start a company to refine, manufacture and sell this new product. At this point Elographics truly began as a basement business. All work was done from three different basements; sensors in one, electronics in another, and cabinets in still another. The office was located in the home where the sensors were being built before moving to Four Oaks Center in February of 1972. The parts of the product were still being produced in basements at night and on weekends and brought to Four Oaks where they were assembled and shipped.Elographics focused on research and scientific markets and produced products that met the specific needs of these markets. These needs included completely self-contained units with adjustable scale factors, decimal readouts, and interfaces to computers and many calculators. The digitizer products were used worldwide in a variety of applications including research, medicine and quality control.
When was the first tablet PC made?
History of Touch Screen Technology1960sHistorians consider the first touch screen to be a capacitive touch screen invented by E.A. Johnson at the Royal Radar Establishment, Malvern, UK, around 1965 - 1967. The inventor published a full description of touch screen technology for air traffic control in an article published in 1968. 1970sIn 1971, a "touch sensor" was developed by Doctor Sam Hurst (founder of Elographics) while he was an instructor at the University of Kentucky. This sensor called the "Elograph" was patented by The University of Kentucky Research Foundation. The "Elograph" was not transparent like modern touch screens, however, it was a significant milestone in touch screen technology. The Elograph was selected by Industrial Research as one of the 100 Most Significant New Technical Products of the Year 1973. In 1974, the first true touch screen incorporating a transparent surface came on the scene developed by Sam Hurst and Elographics. In 1977, Elographics developed and patented a resistive touch screen technology, the most popular touch screen technology in use today.In 1977, Siemens Corporation financed an effort by Elographics to produce the first curved glass touch sensor interface, which became the first device to have the name "touch screen" attached to it. On February 24, 1994, the company officially changed its name from Elographics to Elo TouchSystems.Elographics PatentsUS3662105: Electrical Sensor Of Plane Coordinates Inventor(s)Hurst; George S., Lexington, KY - Parks; James E., Lexington, KYIssued/Filed Dates:May 9, 1972 / May 21, 1970US3798370: Electrographic Sensor For Determining Planar Coordinates Inventor(s)Hurst; George S. , Oak Ridge, TNIssued/Filed Dates:March 19, 1974 / April 17, 19721980sIn 1983, the computer manufacturing company, Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP-150, a home computer with touch screen technology. The HP-150 had a built in grid of infrared beams across the front of the monitor which detected finger movements. However, the infrared sensors would collect dust and require frequent cleanings. 1990sThe nineties introduced smart phones and handhelds with touch screen technology. In 1993, Apple released the Newton PDA, equipped with handwriting recognition; and IBM released the first smart phone called Simon, which featured a calendar, note pad, and fax function, and a touch screen interface that allowed users to dial phone numbers. In 1996, Palm entered the PDA market and advanced touch screen technology with its Pilot series. 2000sIn 2002, Microsoft introduced the Windows XP Tablet edition and started its entry into touch technology. However, you could say that the increase in the popularity of touch screen smart phones defined the 2000s. In 2007, Apple introduced the king of smart phones, the iPhone, with nothing but touch screen technology which was the basis of the iPad. But as you can see it started a lot earlier than that The very first complete TouchScreen Tablet can be defined when in 1994 the European Union initiated the 'OMI-NewsPAD' project (EP9252), requiring a consumer devise be developed for the receipt and consumption of electronically delivered news / newspapers and associated multi-media.The NewsPad name and project goals were borrowed from and inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's 1965 screenplay and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film: 2001: A Space Odyssey. Acorn Computers developed and delivered an ARM based touchscreen tablet computer for this program, branded the NewsPad. The device was supplied for the duration of the Barcelona based trial, which ended in 1997.In 1996, The Webbook Company announced the first Internet-based tablet, then referred to as a Web Surfboard, that would run Java and utilize a RISC processor.In 1999 Intel announced a Strong ARM based touch screen tablet computer under the name WebPAD, the tablet was later re-branded as the "Intel Web Tablet"One early implementation of a Linux tablet was the ProGear by FrontPath. The ProGear used a Transmeta chip and a resistive digitizer. The ProGear initially came with a version of Slackware Linux, but could later be bought with Windows 98.
