What was the Earliest Touchscreen Handheld?

[Jake Schwartz]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone knows the intro date and the identity of the earliest consumer handheld device with a touch screen. I somehow don't think it was the Apple Newton (introduced Aug 1993) . According to Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowics' book "A Guide to HP Handheld Calculators and Computers", the HP Omnigo 100 was introduced in October of 1995. And of course, the 95/100/200LX series (starting in '91) did not have touch screens. Perhaps it was a programmable remote control? I am curious and any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Jake Schwartz

[Dave Britten]

This old FAQ seems to suggest that a couple old models of Sharp Wizards were released in Oct. 1993:

http://scout.wisc.edu/Projects/PastProjects/NH/95-03/95-03-27/0001.html

As I vaguely recall, the OZ-9500 was their earliest touch-screen model, with 256 KB RAM. I had one for a couple years when I was in 6th or 7th grade. I actually did school work on the thing, and printed directly to an old HP Deskjet with the infrared printer interface Sharp sold.

The Wizard and the first Zaurus units (the ones before Sharp recycled the name for their Linux-based PDAs) didn't have any sort of hand-writing recognition, which makes sense, as they had a full keyboard anyway, and didn't have the ability to fold the screen all the way back, like the HP OmniGo.

[Xerxes]

Maybe the CASIO PF-8000 (1980) with a touchpad or the CASIO IF-8000 (1986) with a touchscreen.

[Jake Schwartz]

Well, it looks like the PF-8000 only had a touchPAD which was not a display. The IF-8000 probably meets the requirements except I wonder if they actually put touchable controls on the LCD in addition to allowing one to write on it.

[Xerxes]

I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Some other remarkable early touchscreen devices:

- CASIO PB-1000 Pocket Computer (1986)

- CASIO VDB-1000 Wrist Watch (1991)

- CASIO TC-50 Wrist Watch (1983)

- EPSON RC-20 (1984)

[Jake Schwartz]

I think that the Casio TC-50 watch definitely fits the requirements.since it provided soft keys for a touchscreen calculator where the top portion of the LCD served as the single-line numeric display. If it actually dates back to 1983 (or earlier), we might have a "winner" (until someone locates something from an even earlier time.

Thanks,

Jake

[BruceH]

Not quite the same question but the earliest touchscreen calculator might well be the TI Business Edge which was introduced in 1987.

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

Certainly not the first, but worth a mention:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_(PDA)

[Bill (Smithville, NJ)]

Hi Jake,

In 1989, Poqet introduced the PoqetPad, which was a handheld MSDOS touch screen computer. I think it was mainly designed for vertical markets with custom software overlaying the dos. A few years ago, I has one that also included a bar code wand. Unfortunately, I never had any software for the wand. A very interesting msdos machine.

Bill