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The Linus Write-Top is an early tablet computer first released by Linus Technologies, Inc., of Reston, Virginia, in July 1988. It was the first tablet computer released to the public with support for Pen computing and handwriting recognition software. The Write-Top is compatible with software for the IBM PC and runs an Intel 8088–compatible microprocessor. Although innovative, the Write-Top was a commercial flop, and Linus Technologies folded less than two years after its introduction.
Sklarew, Nadeau, and others spent several years developing the Write-Top, with the final execution rendered by the industrial designer Peter H. Muller of Inter4m. Originally devised as a single-piece device, the final Write-Top was ultimately built out of two pieces, the system unit and the pen-enabled display; however, the two can be latched together to approximate a self-contained tablet.
As a tablet computer, the Write-Top features no built-in physical keyboard. Instead, overlaid on top of the LCD is a glass layer that allows the computer to be controlled using a stylus of nearly any material, including a mechanical pencil. To input text into a given application, the Write-Top features a terminate-and-stay-resident program called Your-Write that takes the user's handwriting (either as single letters or a sequence of words) via a field at the bottom of the screen and interprets it as textual information, outputting ASCII text into the currently open application. The software reserves a number of specialized symbols representing commands such as deletion of the word at the position of the text cursor and copying and pasting. Users can also select blocks of text using the pen and move them around freely by hand. When loaded into the operating system, Your-Write occupies 40 KB of RAM. The user must provide multiple samples of their handwriting for training the algorithm when loading Your-Write; in order to generate a robust dataset of the user's handwriting, this training module takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Linus also shipped with the computer an 80-column word processor called Just-Write, which is specifically optimized for Your-Write. Besides Your-Write and Just-Write, Linus also sold separately Code-Write, a software development kit for programmers wanting to create software with the same handwriting recognition algorithm as Your-Right. Besides these titles by Linus, the Write-Top is compatible with the vast majority of IBM PC software.
By January 1989, the company had sold 1,000 units of the Write-Top and had secured at least one third-party software developer, Baxter International, whose Electronic Medical Systems subsidiary developed Your-Write compatible software for hospital personnel. The computer was warmly received in the press and by users, with Peter J. Harbeson of Manager's Magazine writing that it "may be the most exciting new technology for sales and management professionals since the invention of the laptop". Many more felt that the tablet's $3,000 asking price was too high, however, especially when coupled with the rather lacking pen-capable software library for the IBM PC. In mid-February 1990, by which point 1,500 units of the Write-Top were sold, Linus went bankrupt and dissolved. In a post-mortem interview with USA Today, Sklarew said that "We were a little too early with not enough staying power", with the majority of the company's time spent educating corporate buyers on the pen computing paradigm.
Following the collapse of Linus, the Write-Top patents were sold to Grid Systems, then a subsidiary of Tandy Corporation. Grid had introduced their own tablet computer, the GridPad, in 1989, to much greater commercial success than the Write-Top.
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