Dvorak Uncensored » Whatever Happened to the Gavilan Mobile Computer?Perhaps one of the most aggressive computers of its era. AND doomed to fail. Read about it here.
excerpt:
Their plans seemed to combine all of the most advanced technological trends of the period into one blockbuster product. It took advantage of the object-oriented programming methods that were being developed for SmallTalk at Xerox PARC, the type of icon-based user-interface Apple was developing for the Lisa and, later, the Macintosh, the trend towards portable computing that the Osborne 1 had started, and the new CMOS technology.
The Gavilan was a sleek looking unit in a black case of a half-clamshell design. In this respect, it foreshadowed the design of today’s laptop computers at a time when the laptop of the day was the Tandy Model 100.
Not content to merely copy existing technology, Gavilan also set out to create a touch panel, which was officially referred to as a “solid state mouse.”
I am still pining for the Otrona Attache.
John, I’d like you to do a piece on what happened to GeoWorks. It worked so great — better than Windows 3.1, even though it pre-dated it. And it was cheap. It even helped AOL get their start.
Then it just went “poof”. I’ve always wondered what happened.
Wikipiedia as some on it but not enough to really explain it. I’ve wondered if Microsoft was somehow behind it all.