Dan Bricklin, who in addition to being known for Visicalc also co-founded Slate, described his reactions to the latest round of Tablet PC technology back in November. His essay covers much of the history of pen computing software and hardware from ten years ago up to now. It concentrates on the business productivity software area, as that is what the Tablet PC is oriented towards, rather than the vertical application market that the software I worked on at GRiD was designed for. As a happy user of the good ol’ GRiD Convertible, which really was a Tablet PC before there was such a designation, Bricklin was pleased to recover much of that machine’s flexibility when he got his Toshiba Tablet PC. He loves portrait mode (it’s great for reading and I still miss it myself). His main point is that this new round of Tablet PCs should, and often does, take advantage of what was learned in that last, rather unsuccessful round. Microsoft is getting the technology out into the hands of users (and they can afford a few rounds of failure) to get the information they need to ultimately create a successful tablet and pen environment. They also have the luxury of being able to influence hardware vendors to certain specifications rather than having to sink millions into being a PC developer themselves.