Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10
How it Started:
Mobile Internet Devices of
the Previous Millennium
Evan Koblentz
Historian, USA
ABSTRACT
Internet access on cellular phones, after emerging as a new technology in the mid-1990s, is now a thriv-
ing activity despite the global economic recession. IDC reported smartphone sales of 1.18 billion units
in 2008 (IDC, 2009), compared to the unconnected personal digital assistants approaching merely 1
million units per quarter in the second half of 2003. However, the concept of using handheld devices for
wide-area data applications began 25 years prior to the beginning of the end of PDAs.
INTRODUCTION
the world's first PDA (Klausner & Hotto, 1977).
Toshiba acquired the rights and produced it as the
Memo Note 30 model LC-836MN. It combined a
handheld calculator with an alphanumeric keypad
and had the ability to store up to 30 data entries.
Noteworthy in these devices were their ap-
plications to the intelligence community. Lexicon
founder Michael Levy revealed in 2003 (Koblentz
2003) that an encryption module was created for
the U.S. National Security Agency, while Toshiba's
product was featured for its own cipher value in
the April 1980 issue of Cryptologia. In both cases,
The key year in the history of PDA devices is
1978. That year, a start-up called Lexicon sold
its handheld electronic language translator (Levy,
1979) called the LK-3000. Its interchangeable
modules included database and notepad applica-
tions, and the product was licensed by Siemens-
Nixdorf. Meanwhile independent inventors Robert
Hotto and Judah Klausner patented what may be
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