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Rugged Slates
Perfect for when you don't need a keyboard
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)
Slate computers are full-function Windows machines without a keyboard. The entire computer is built into a slate-like enclosure that is as thin and handy as possible.  Since they don't have a physical keyboard, slates use passive or active pens for input. The pen is used both to replace the mouse or joystick for navigation, and sometimes also to actually enter text.
Slate computers may use a passive digitizer that can be operated with a stylus or even a finger. Active digitizers (required by Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet PC Edition) use an electromagnetic digitizer with a special pen. Some pen slates, such as products from Itronix or Xplore, can switch beetween passive and active digitizers. All pen slates have on-screen keyboards or you can, of course, connect a standard keyboard.
Slate computers are perfect for many field applications where low weight and maximum portability are crucial. Some slates weigh barely more than two pounds. Others are heavily sealed and ruggedized and can be used in almost any environment.
 A variant of the "pure" slate computer is the notebook "convertible." Convertibles are standard notebooks with displays that twist and then lay down flat on top of the keyboard/system unit, converting the notebook into a slate computer, albeit a relatively heavy one.
Today, Tablet PC slates and convertibles are increasingly successful in many industries, in business, and even with consumers.
A bit of slate computer history
In the late 1980s, early pen computer systems generated a lot of excitement and there was a time when it was thought they might eventually replace conventional computers with keyboards. After all, everyone knows how to use a pen and pens are certainly less intimidating than keyboards.
Pen computers, as envisioned in the 1980s, were built around handwriting recognition. In the early 1980s, handwriting recognition was seen as an important future technology. Nobel prize winner Dr. Charles Elbaum started Nestor and developed the NestorWriter handwriting recognizer. Communication Intelligence Corporation created the Handwriter recognition system, and there were many others.
In 1991, the pen computing hype was at a peak. The pen was seen as a challenge to the mouse, and pen computers as a replacement for desktops.  Microsoft, seeing slates as a potentially serious competition to Windows computers, announced Pen Extensions for Windows 3.1 and called them Windows for Pen Computing. Microsoft made some bold predictions about the advantages and success of pen systems that would take another ten years to even begin to materialize. In 1992, products arrived. GO Corporation released PenPoint. Lexicus released the Longhand handwriting recognition system. Microsoft released Windows for Pen Computing. Between 1992 and 1994, a number of companies introduced hardware to run Windows for Pen Computing or PenPoint. Among them were EO, NCR, Samsung (the picture to the right is a 1992 Samsung PenMaster), Dauphin, Fujitsu, TelePad, Compaq, Toshiba, and IBM. Few people remember that the original IBM ThinkPad was, as the name implies, slate computers.
The computer press was first enthusiastic, then very critical when pen computers did not sell. They measured pen computers against desktop PCs with Windows software and most of them found pen tablets difficult to use. They also criticized handwriting recognition and said it did not work. After that, pen computer companies failed. Momenta closed in 1992. They had used up US$40 million in venture capital. Samsung and NCR did not introduce new products. Pen pioneer GRiD was bought by AST for its manufacturing capacity. AST stopped all pen projects. Dauphin, which was started by a Korean businessman named Alan Yong, went bankrupt, owing IBM over $40 million. GO was taken over by AT&T, and AT&T closed the company in August 1994 (after the memorable "fax on the beach" TV commercials). GO had lost almost US$70 million in venture capital. Compaq, IBM, NEC, and Toshiba all stopped making consumer market pen products in 1994 and 1995.
By 1995, pen computing was dead in the consumer market. Microsoft made a half-hearted attempt at including "Pen Services" in Windows 95, but slate computers had gone away, at least in consumer markets. It lived on in vertical and industrial markets. Companies such as Fujitsu Personal Systems, Husky, Telxon, Microslate, Intermec, Symbol Technologies, Xplore, and WalkAbout made and sold many pen tablets and pen slates.
2002: Microsoft reinvents the pen computer
That was, however, not the end of pen computing. Bill Gates had always been a believer in the technology, and you can see slate computers in many of Microsoft's various "computing in the future" presentations over the years. Once Microsoft reintroduced pen computers as the "Tablet PC" in 2002, slates and notebook convertibles made a comeback, and new companies such as Motion Computing joined the core of vertical and industrial market slate computers specialists.
The primary reason why the Microsoft-specification Tablet PC is reasonably successful whereas earlier attempts were not has two reasons. First, the technology required for a pen slate simply wasn't there in the early 1990s. And second, the pen visionaries' idea of replacing keyboard input with handwriting (and voice) recognition turned out to be far more difficult than anticipated. There were actually some very good recognizers that are still being used today, but they all require training and a good degree of adaptation by the user. You can't just scribble on the screen and the computer magically understands everything. With the Tablet PC, Microsoft downplayed handwriting recognition in favor of "digital ink" as a new data type. This was a very wise decision.
2007: Vista, UMPCs, and MIDs
When Microsoft Windows Vista arrived in early 2007, Microsoft decided to include all pen functionality rather than offering a separate version as it had done with the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. We've reviewed several slates with Vista and Microsoft did a good job seamlessly integrating all the pen options.
In the meantime, Microsoft had also introduced the Ultra-Mobile PC, or UMPC, platform in March of 2006. Microsoft's described the UMPC as "a device-like computer that is small, mobile, and runs the full Windows operating system. The UMPC goes anywhere and does anything that your current computer can do." The UMPC was initially conceived as a small, inexpensive slate with a touchscreen, but the concept didn't catch on due to low performance and higher than expected pricing.
In May of 2007, Microsoft loosened the design description to "any portable computer running full Windows with a screen size of 7 inches or smaller." Intel announced its own Intel Ultra Mobile Platform 2007 based on low-power Intel A100 and A110 processor designed to drive both UMPCs and yet another category, Mobile Internet Devices or MIDs. MIDs do not necessarily have to run standard Windows. Both the UMPC and the MID platforms are naturals for handheld rugged devices and we'll undoubtedly see many interesting designs.
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