Digibarn Collection ➔ PenPoint tablet pen computer by GO Corporation
(prototype for early market evangelism)
Physical Object
2021.11.07.90.db
Profound thanks go out to Gary Downing for donating this prototype (we think serial number 13) of the GO PenPoint tablet PC plus loads of great documentation including the original launch literature kit. Here we feature Gary Downing, who was an evangelist for GO, describing the company, its vision and product:
| Gary Downing on GO & PenPoint (10MB MP3) | More by Gary Downing (3MB MP3) |
Another effort was GO's tablet computer using GO's Penpoint operating system and manufactured by various hardware makers such as NCR and IBM. IBM's Thinkpad tablet computer was based on Penpoint operating system and used IBM's handwriting recognition. This recognition system was later ported to Microsoft Windows for Pen, and IBM's Pen for OS/2. None of these were commercially successful.
From Dan Bricklin's page on tablet computing:
The next really influential tablet system was from GO Corporation. The prototype "Lombard" was 80286 based, and ran a new, GUI operating system called PenPoint. GO was started in 1987. After announcing their product in January 1991, GO upgraded the base system to require an 80386 for the first real customer release (which was in April 1992). Later, as the company named EO, the processor for PenPoint was changed again, this time to the AT&T Hobbit chip. Each time, software developers had to upgrade their software.
After GO started on PenPoint, Microsoft reacted with enhancements to Windows 3.1 to create Windows for Pen Computing, better known as PenWindows. (The head of that project was Jeff Raikes, who now heads Microsoft's Productivity and Business Services Group which includes the Tablet PC.)