Stanley Kubrick invented the tablet computer

The inquirer ^ | Wed Aug 24 2011 | Dave Neal

[Charles Martel]

"My God, HP is sold out of $99 TouchPads!"

[rbg81]

Looks like a tablet “TV” only. Don’t see any interactive activity with it.

[MatD]

Apple steals all of their ideas from others, then try to sue their competitors over stealing it from them. How rich.

[massgopguy]

Don’t you mean you’ll take “Gold”?

[massgopguy]

Don’t you mean you’ll take “Gold”?

[massgopguy]

Dick Tracy gave us Video Conferencing.

[massgopguy]

Dick Tracy gave us Video Conferencing.

[Calvin Locke]

...one fifth atmospheric pressure

I recall it as 1/3, that is 5psi.

[fireforeffect]

When you get right down to it, most of the personal use technology we see today was speculated on by the great masters of science fiction.

Cell phones, tablet computers/PDA’s, airplanes, submarines, space ships, the Internet, etc. All of these and more were theorized in science fiction before they became reality.

What I want to know is, where's my flying car?

[Boogieman]

Yes, Microsoft was able to show that both Macintosh OS and Windows were derived from the earlier Xerox PARC gui.

[ctdonath2]

Well, he did have to use something big enough to be obvious to a TV-viewing audience. MicroSD cards are awesome, but would require too many close-up shots to make visuals sensible.

[Steely Tom]

Well, he did have to use something big enough to be obvious to a TV-viewing audience. MicroSD cards are awesome, but would require too many close-up shots to make visuals sensible.

Yeah, I forgot about that. Good point.

[Steely Tom]

As someone has pointed out, the little panels on 2001 were TVs, not computers or computer terminals.

I'm not sure that's true.

Clarke mentioned -- in more than one of this stories -- a combined computer/telephone/television device he imagined would be called a "comsole," that was a near-ubiquitous fixture of everyday life in the future.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Pretty amazing that the higher ups in Xerox didn’t recognize what they had...

When a sufficiently revolutionary product is invented, such as the GUI interface, the reaction from the established business community is often befuddlement if not rejection. It is too outside the envelope to fit in.

The real point is that, even tho the Apple II was already in being, it was considered a toy by computer executives rather than being recognized as the wave of the future of office productivity. IBM came out with its "Personal Computer" primarily as a spoiler rather than as a serious effort to sell lots of computers into offices and homes. Witness the original limitations on address space which were built into DOS. Witness the ease with which the clones took over the market in the teeth of the presumed IBM monopoly position with all IBM's legal eagles. The IBM PC was designed not to "canabalize" IBM's mainframe business.

The very last thing on the minds of the IBM brass was to create "insanely great" user experience via - ugh! Please!- small computers.

Xerox didn't have the vision of affordable personal computers, either - their thing was (what were then) high-end workstations. Steve Jobs brought GUI to the masses. That's probably the epitaph of his career.

[zeugma]

Well, he did have to use something big enough to be obvious to a TV-viewing audience. MicroSD cards are awesome, but would require too many close-up shots to make visuals sensible.

Although I use the micro-SD cards in several devices, I don't really like them. They are too small. You can't label them, and they are really easily misplaced. 

Personally, I think the CompactFlash cards are the perfect size. You can actually label the things and they are also stupid fast. Yeah, they limit the size of devices that use them, but in most devices, it really wouldn't make a difference. SD cards aren't bad, but micros are taking a good thing too far IMO.

[Atlas Sneezed]

The world’s first protoype analog quartz wristwatches were revealed in 1967: the Beta 1 revealed by the Centre Electronique Horloger (CEH) in Neuchâtel Switzerland,[9][10] and the prototype of the Astron revealed by Seiko in Japan. (Seiko had been working on quartz clocks since 1958).[9] In 1969, Seiko produced the world’s first commercial quartz wristwatch, the Astron.

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NASA had nothing to do with the quartz watch, obviously.

Nor did they develop Velcro or Tang.

The Apollo Astronauts wore mechanical watches (not self winding) in the form of Omega Speedmasters. They had plastic “crystals” in order to avoid the risk of shattering.

AAA: never in doubt, occasionally correct.

[Atlas Sneezed]

I don’t know.....a paper trail is always good. Hard copy.

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Sorry to pile on, but it’s absurd to think of adding reams of paper to a launch payload!

[DB]

First, the IBM PC had 10 times the memory space of a Apple II which at the time seemed like a lot.

Second, the memory space limitation was due to the Intel 8088 processor. DOS simply matched its capabilities. It had 16 64 kB segments 10 of which were available for user memory. The remaining 6 segments were for BIOS, Basic and Hardware I/O - like video.

Third, the IBM PC was a success because it had an open bus standard with published specifications inviting third parties to make plug in cards for it - and they did - all sorts of things. That made it useful for many applications far beyond what IBM ever imagined.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

First, the IBM PC had 10 times the memory space of a Apple II which at the time seemed like a lot.

Yeah, if you make no reference to Moore's Law, you're right - a factor of ten sounds impressive. But according to Moore's Law that's only about six years' worth of chip development. Easy to see how someone could think that was plenty for, basically, a toy which would never be a serious part of the computer world, which must be dominated by mainframes since mainframes are what IBM makes money on.