Subject: Seeking info on AT&T Gemini-100 Electronic Blackboard

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 7 20:38:29 2003

In the late 1970s, AT&T's Bell Labs invented the "electronic blackboard".
It was basically a digitizing tablet that allowed one to draw and transmit
images.

Might anyone know where one exists?  How about similar products prior to
December 1979?  When was the first digitizing tablet invented?

This is research I'm conducting for a client, so any useful leads will be
compensated.

Thanks!

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

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From: John Honniball <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 7 20:41:16 2003

> December 1979?  When was the first digitizing tablet invented?

I have in front of me a manual for a Ferranti digitiser.  It was about
A0 in size (4 feet by 5 feet approx) with a crosshair "puck".  Some
of the documents refer to the digitiser as a "Bendix", but I don't
know why.

The dates on the schematics are 1970.

--
John Honniball
[email-masked]

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From: "Fred N. van Kempen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 7 20:47:49 2003

Hi all,

I'm running into probs with tru64 5.1 on alpha... anyone
here able to help out?  please contact me by email !

thanks,
        Fred

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From: "Deano Calver" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 7 20:54:49 2003

Summagraphics were founded in 1972 and 1978 released Bit Pad (sometimes
considered to be the first commercial digitizer).

Computer graphics research had been using 'exotic' input devices for years.

A quick check of the CG literature gives a few biblography entrys the should
help:

[Dertouzos71] () Dertousoz, M.L. "Graphic Data Tablet", United States Patent
3,705,956, assigned to Computek, Incorporated, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
December 12, 1972.
    Early electromagnetic digitizer tablet patent, using Gray Code grid
pattern encoding, using phase of induced voltage

Fernald73] () Fernald, Olaf H. "Optical graphic data tablet", United States
Patent 3,761,877, September 25, 1973.
    Optical digitizing tablet: stylus shines a light on a transparent glass
plate, with a scanner underneath

[Hlady75] () Hlady, A.M. "Touch Sensitive Position Encoder using a Layered
Sheet", United States Patent 3,916,099, October 28, 1975, assigned to
Canadian Patent and Development Limited, Ottowa, Canada.
    Digitizer using surface acoustic wave

[Kuipers75] () Kuipers, Jack United States Patent 3,868,565, February 25,
1975.
    Polhemus (?) patent on generating rotating fields to digitize position
and angular position at same time (3-D tablet plus rotation, theta, phi,
rho).
    (3,868,564 is a motor patent from the USSR)

[Pobgee71] () Pobgee, P.J. and Parks, J.R. "Applications of a Low Cost
Graphical Input Tablet", IFIP 1971, North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp ??,
(TA-4-169)

[Sutherland73] () Sutherland, I.E. "Three-dimensional Data Input by Tablet",
Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 62 No 4, April 1974, pp 453-461.

[Uncapher71] (*) Uncapher, K.W. " The RAND Video Graphic System - An
Approach to a General User-Computer Graphic Communication System ", RAND
Corporation Research Report R-753-ARPA, April 1971
    Copy on file has best image of RAND tablet and display hardware: shows
photographic image and electronic text/ink displayed on same surface

The RAND Video Graphics System is mentioned in  RFC 113 dated 1971 and
describes the use of a table to drive a video graphics display.

HTH.
    Deano

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From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 7 21:02:25 2003

I finished taking one apart that had an embedded HP 1000 computer in it.
The thing was HUGE! The tablet was about 6 by 8 FEET. IIRC it was made by
Giesler Scientific and it used a high resolution Advin color monitor. I'm
not sure but I think it dated from about 1974.

   Joe