Gallery: The Tablets That Paved the Way for the iPad
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__~1300 BCE: The Ten Commandments__ The historical tablets of yore were hewn of rock or precious stone, and were generally rectangular in shape, with sharp corners. Perhaps most notably among these non-electronic slates were the Ten Commandments sent to Moses in the Book of Exodus.
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__1888: Gray's Tablet Patent__ In the more modern era, electrical engineer Elisha Gray [filed a patent in 1888](http://stag-mantis.wired.com/2009/09/tablet-taxonomy/all/) for an electronic stylus-type device that would capture handwriting. Piggybacking on the development of the telephone, the device would relay handwritten messages using telegraph technology, like a precursor to iMessage.
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__1963: RAND Tablet__ The [RAND tablet](http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM4122.html) was a low-cost graphical computer input device described as having "great potential" in digitizing map information as well as "more esoteric applications of graphical languages for man-machine interaction." It had a 10-inch square writing area that paired with a stylus.
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__1972: Dynabook__ Developed by [Alan Kay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay), the Dynabook was designed to act as a lightweight personal computer for children of all ages. Based on the [Smalltalk](http://www.world.st/) platform, the idea led to the development of a prototype Xerox Alto (one of the first general purpose PCs). The Dynabook was never actually built due to the technological limitations of the times.
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__1989: GRiDPad__ While the idea of the tablet was firmly planted, Samsung was the first to actually execute a consumer-focused touchscreen slate, the [GRiDPad](http://oldcomputers.net/gridpad.html), in 1989. Used by the U.S. Army, the tablet, which had a 640x400 resolution monochrome display operated by stylus, was bigger than a piece of paper, measured 1.4 inches thick, and weighed 4.5 pounds.
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__1990: Fujitsu PoqetPad __ The 1.2-pound [PoqetPad](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/a/pdf/PoqetPad%20(1989).pdf), made by Fujitsu, followed the GRiDPad. This was a handheld touchscreen computer with a 7 MHz NEC V20 CPU inside. It ran DOS, and, powered by AA batteries, could achieve 16 to 48 hours of battery life.
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__1992: IBM 2521 ThinkPad__ You've certainly heard of the ThinkPad, IBM's (and now Lenovo's) long-running portable notebook brand. But the ThinkPad actually began as [a pen-based PC](http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:700T) with a 10-inch monochrome display, 20 MB Flash drive, and 2.4K modem. Eventually renamed the 700T, the slate ran PenPoint OS.
Rama/ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagePad#mediaviewer/File:Apple_Newton-IMG_0454-cropped.jpg">Wikimedia</a>08newton-pad
__1993: Newton MessagePad__ The iPad was not Apple's first foray into the tablet space. The [Newton MessagePad](http://www.macworld.com/article/2047342/remembering-the-newton-messagepad-20-years-later.html), a two-pound, 20 MHz processor-housing slate, predates it by over a decade. It was operated by pen input; unfortunately, the handwriting recognition was terrible at first, and it never achieved widespread commercial success even after improvements were made.
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__1996: Palm Pilot__ The [Palm Pilot](http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mobile-computing/18/321) successfully picked up where the Newton left off, spawning the popularity of PDAs (personal digital assistants). Smaller and cheaper, with a 160 x 160 resolution display, a 16 MHz Motorola processor and 512kB of memory, it could "HotSync" to computers using a serial cable, and you could take notes using Palm's shorthand [Graffiti alphabet](http://www.omniglot.com/writing/graffiti.htm).
Janto Dreijer/<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tablet.jpg#filelinks">Wikimedia</a>10HP-Microsoft-Tablet-PC-WIkimedia-PD
__2002: HP Microsoft Tablet PC__ In the early 2000s, Microsoft took a stab at the tablet genre with a tablet edition of Windows XP. Microsoft Tablet PCs were full x86 machines with handwriting and voice recognition. Then-CEO Bill Gates predicted they'd become the most popular PC form in America, but in reality, full Windows on a slate was too bloated to work well for most people.
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__2005: Nokia 770 Internet tablet __ Riding high on its cellphone fame, Nokia released a [Wi-Fi Internet tablet](http://amzn.com/B000CSVZTU) (designed to be an "Internet appliance") in 2005. It had features familiar to today's tablet users, including web browsing, email, an RSS news reader, ebook reader, and media player, which you could launch from its home screen.
