LG demonstrates wireless Linux Web pad at CeBIT (2001) | Hacker News Reader

LG demonstrates wireless Linux Web pad at CeBIT (2001)

linuxfordevices.com

66 pointsbane21 comments

This article was published on 2001-03-23. However, it's interesting to see that they called it the "Digital iPAD". Wonder why it never took off? Why didn't they ever trademark the name?

I notice that Gizmodo's already published a story based on this article: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/09/check-out-lgs-ipad-from-20...

Even better in next paragraph: "LG's new Digital iPad comes with..."

Can someone edit the title to include "(2001)"?

Cute find, but the significance is not clear unless you note the articles published date. It took a little while to realise why LG was spruiking a tablet called an iPad.

well.. not mentioning that had a nice effect on me.

I was like WTF and then the truth kicked in.

Wow, what a blast from the past. 64mb of memory, 206mhz Intel StrongARM, "Internet appliance" was still a term, and 802.11b was still new.

That strong arm CPU was way underpowered for web surfing ...

Not for WAP, it wouldn't have been :)

Your references please ?

I was using a similar SA1100 on the Zaurus 5000d (developer release, purchased at the Linux Expo 2001 in NYC) then the 5500 and finally on the Simpad SL4 where it drove a 800x600 screen (Both the Sharp Zaurus and the Siemens Simpad where using Qtopia, QT embedded)

Opera and Konqueror were both running fine. There was even a demo of a voice-controller Opera browser from IBM - also running fine.

OTOH, the RAM was the real problem. 32 Mb on the 5000d was really not enough. I managed to find a company doing BGA reflow to solder 128 Mb on my simpad SL4, which worked great after some minor kernel tweaks to enable it.

So the SA1100 was fine for web surfing, 64Mb was acceptable even if 128 was better.

I had a PDA with a similar strong arm CPU, it was dog slow for complex pages with opera. Of cause I can't rule out the os as the culprit.

So isn't this like "prior art" relevant to the recent Samsung vs Apple "patent" trials?

"No"

I think their patent wars are currently about phones, not tablets.

Their patent wars cover everything. The recent court decision was about phones though.

I also noticed this

A spokesman for LG at CeBIT said that the product may come with other connectivity solutions, however, including possibly a "PDA style slot" for mobile phones.

which reminded me of

http://www.pcworld.com/article/228977/asus_padfone_combines_...

That's very interesting. I wonder if Apple and LG ever got an agreement on the name.

Was LG's tablet ever released to the public?

What a crappy website. I've tried 15 times to submit a reply to a comment on that article and each time I get 'Your comment does not pass our spam filter. Please try again.' with no indication of what part of the comment is lacking.

The website retired some time ago. It's possible that the comments just don't work anymore.

It's not entirely clear to me why this matters at all.

Cuz Apple "didnt build that"

The most interesting thing is that a tablet computer called an iPad was shopped about over ten years ago.

Looks like a lot like this - http://www.google.com/patents?id=6BsWAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&...

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