1964

RAND Tablet

The RAND Corporation was founded in 1946 as a research project backed by the US Army Air Forces. In 1948, it became a nonprofit research and policy institute covering a wide variety of multidisciplinary topics for both government and nongovernment clients. In 1964, the company’s research team created the first digitizing tablet: a flat device that was placed on a table that could detect and capture the movements of a pen-like object called a stylus, allowing a user to easily enter drawings, measurements, or even their signature into a computer.

Called the RAND Tablet, the device measured 24¼ inches wide, 20¼ inches deep, and just 1 inch high (approximately 60 × 50 × 2½ centimeters). It had a pen-like instrument connected by a wire to the tablet’s base with which the user could draw or write freehand on its horizontal surface. As users made contact with the tablet’s surface using the stylus, the text or images appeared in real time on a connected display, giving the user a sensory experience that felt as if they were somehow drawing directly on the screen.

The tablet was part of a study RAND conducted that examined how a person and a computer could more efficiently interact and exchange information. In this case, the tablet demonstrated how communication could occur by leveraging a human’s physical dexterity and the kinetic movements used to express oneself in written form. RAND described the tablet as a “live pad of paper.”

The RAND Tablet was a seminal example of reimagining the traditional shape and interface of a computer—a large machine with a screen and a keyboard—into a configuration designed to function as an analog communication device with a natural means for self-expression. The graphic elements of the device were informed by the groundbreaking research that went into Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad, which is also credited with contributing to the development of the first computer-aided design (CAD) software.

Because of their flexibility and familiarity, tablets became a popular method for graphical computer input. The RAND Tablet is also the ancestor of signature pads used by banks and even the tiny graphical digitizer on the screen of the PalmPilot® and the modern smartphone.

Tom Ellis, one of the inventors of the RAND tablet, with a pen in his hand, writing on the tablet.