[inforoots] RE: GRiD historical sgnificance

[Karen Tucker]

Thanks, Glenn. This is cc'ed to both our inforoots participants and
John.

Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Edens [mailto:Glenn.Edens at sun.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 9:24 PM
To: Karen Tucker
Subject: Re: GRiD historical sgnificance

Cool, a few corrections and additions below, funny how these things get
going, feel free to forward this; it might be useful for John Markoff as
well?

Glenn

On Feb 16, 2006, at 8:08 PM, Karen Tucker wrote:

>
> Glenn,
>
> I mentioned that our volunteers have been discussing GRiD lately in 
> their postings.  Here is a note posted by Jeff Katz:
>
> At a recent evening rental event one of the visitors happened to be an

> early principal at GRiD Computer Systems.  He naturally asked about 
> our collection of GRiD artifacts, and was promptly led to the example 
> we have on the Wall-of-PCs.  Thereupon he expressed mild 
> disappointment that the model on display was a later model, not the 
> original GRiD Compass, which he believes has much more historical 
> significance.  He was invited to provide us with any insights he could

> offer about that historical significance.  What follows is excerpted 
> from several e- mails he sent in the next few days.  You may find some

> of the facts and comments useful for discussing with future visitors.
>
> Visitor comments follow.
> ----------------------------------
>
> Note 1.
>
> Thanks for the tour Wednesday.  You guys have done a great job.  I 
> especially liked the old NORAD control consoles.  Talk about memories;

> it was like Dr. Strangelove.  ;-)
>
> I was very depressed not to see more representation from GRiD, one of 
> the real pioneers in portable computing.  I would have thought you'd 
> at least have one of the GRiD Compass 1101s, the first true laptop.  
> GRiD actually held the patent for the clamshell (screen folds over
> keyboard)
> laptop concept, and simply for that reason I would think it 
> indispensable.  Add to that the pioneering use of bubble memory, its 
> place in the Museum of Modern Art, use of plasma and EL displays, and 
> its history of flying on the space shuttle and you are seriously 
> missing a piece of history!
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> Note 2.
>
> GRiD had a major influence on the computing world.  An amazing 
> influence really, especially given the size of the company.  It's hard

> to imagine
> that you don't have more of their history displayed.    . . . Here  
> are a
>
> few of the things I remember offhand:
>
>     * GRiD was founded by John Ellenby, a researcher at Xerox PARC, in

> 1980
	John left Xerox before i left Apple but we were both involved in
the founding, John wanted to do an email terminal and it was my idea to
do a full blown computer.  John Ellenby, Bill Moggridge, David Paulsen
and myself worked for many months on the original business plan and
concepts for the machine.  i also did all of the original financial
plans and budgets.  David and i could not leave our jobs for financial
reasons so we had to wait to go full time until GRiD had some seed
money.  Gene Amdahl and Ray Williams were a few of the early investors.
Larry Sonsini worked personally with us (boy those were the days!)
Ester Dyson and Ben Rosen were also big influences (Ben was an investor)
and they probably do not know it or do not remember but they were real
role models for me.  So was Reid Dennis of IVP.

>     * The GRiD Compass 1100, designed by Bill Moggridge, was the first
>       true laptop computer
	The design was by Bill, Steve Hobson and myself (we are all
credited in MoMA as well) it was truly an interactive and collaborative
event, if you remember the story that Bill told at his CHM talk about
some of our early design discussions for which he made the joke about
the ones i was right about, like color ;-)  He was a brilliant designer
and Steve Hobson was a brilliant mechanical engineer.  David was able to
cram all of the electronics into the box and Carol was able to cram all
of the software.  Craig developed all of the communications and server
side software as well as the provisioning and customer management
systems, since we had one of the first on-line systems it was all new.

>     * GRiD owned the patent to the "clamshell" laptop design - there
>       would be no laptops as we know them without GRiD
	Very true, David and i made sure all the engineers that worked
on it were listed on the patent as well, even though Bill, David and i
did it before any other of the team was hired

>     * GRiD was the first portable to use non-volatile bubble memory
> - a
>       precursor to flash memory
	We also worked on the development of the 3.5 inch floppy format
with Sony and Microsoft

>     * The GRiD-OS was entirely graphical, well ahead of its time
	It was also multitasking, which was very rare for the day, and
we we the first company that Intel ever gave their compilers away to, so
we could ship a development environment with PLM-86, Basic and Fortran.

>     * The use of electro-luminescent displays in a portable computer 
> was
>       a GRiD innovation
	GRiD pretty much spurred the entire flat panel display industry,
John and i set up a race between all of the big Japanese companies to
design a flat display, we had EL, Plasma and later LCD.

	We also pioneered the use of magnesium for injection molded case
work, later also used by NEXT.

	We invented thin keyboards with a German company called RAFI.

	As far as i know we were the first commercial product to use the
Intel 8086 and the 8087 math coprocessor, the PC used the 8088 so we
were the first 16-bit portable or personal computer as well

	We were the first computer that included a fully functional
telephone and telephone handset!!!!!!!!!!!

	We were one of the earliest machines to use a LAN-like network
(Ethernet did not yet exist as a full fledged product).  GRiDnet was
similar to AppleTalk but predated it by a year or two.
	
	We were the first company with an integrated productivity
software suite, spreadsheet, word processor, graphics, communications
terminal emulator, email reader and a rudimentary PIM.  We did not have
a database however.  Lotus came later.

	The GRiD convertible was the first tablet PC and it was the
design that Microsoft copied when they introduced the tablet PC nearly a
decade later!  It defined the "convertible" form factor whereas the
GRiDpad defined the "slate" form factor.

	We pioneered the concept of a "bus" for connecting peripherals,
we used GPIB (an IEEE standard developed by HP for test equipment) and
it allowed us to have hot swap peripherals including disk drives,
printers, scanners and other odd "military" equipment.  The  
peripherals could be daisy chained just like USB and Firewire today.   
We created quite a little cottage industry for GPIB peripherals for a
while.


>     * GRiD computers and a GRiDNet/GRiDMail system were used in the
>       White House for at least 4 presidencies
	And i have not been able to verify this with Vent Cerf but we
may also have been the first commercial email, file sharing and backup
service, the GRiD was the first machine with a built in modem and at the
time most modems were as big as the whole GRiD machine.  GRiD also flew
on Air Force One.

>     * GRiD computers flew aboard the US Space Shuttle for dozens of
>       missions - the first laptop in space
	This was one of my most fun projects while at GRiD, we were also
one of the first commercial products ever approved for spaceflight
(maybe other than TANG)

>     * The GRiDPad was the first commercially successful pen computing
>       system
	It was also the first with handwriting recognition, i think we
were way ahead of Newton
	
>     * Jeff Hawkins formed many of the pen computing concepts that went
>       into the Palm Pilot while at GRiD Systems
	The Palm hardware was also done by some of the early GRiD team
	
>     * GRiD Systems was named by John Morgridge's (Cisco Systems) wife
	This one is dead wrong, John Morgridge did not join GRiD until
many  
years after it was founded, i was even long gone before John joined.   
The name was created one afternoon by John, his ex-wife Gillian and
myself.  We had boiled it down to a few names and Gillian really gets
the credit for pushing to use it, it was also a funny joke to her since
it was the nickname of the Scottish sewer system "the grids" ;-)  I came
up withe the spelling and capitalization style GRiD (the little 'i" was
a note of thank you to Intel for helping in the early days)

>     * It was the recovery of a GRiD computer in the wreckage of a 
> plane
>       shot down in Central America that brought the Iran Contra 
> scandal
>       to light
	Yes i believe that is true.  After the Challenger shuttle
wreckage was recovered the GRiD laptops still worked.

>     * Jimmy Buffet carried a GRiD computer for years on tour and GRiD
>       was a favorite of Penn Gillette of Penn and Teller
	One of our first machines was sold to William F. Buckley who
used it for years.  Rumor has it that one of the first machines was also
bought by Steve Jobs, Steve and i did have a bet that i would ship the
GRiD before he shipped the Lisa, we won but he never paid up


>     * Francis Ford Coppola used GRiD computers while filming several
>       hits in the 80s and 90s
	So did many other famous scriptwriters and directors

>     * GRiD computers saw action in several military actions including
>       Desert Storm
	It was pretty much field tested for the first time in Grenada

>     * GRiD was one of the earliest to use a startup shipping company -
>       Federal Express - to ship their computer systems
	Yup, we also used them for maintenance sparing which was very
unusual for the time
	

>
> Without GRiD much of what we take for granted today might not have 
> evolved...

	I agree, humbly of course ;-)

Glenn

>
> ---------------------------------------
>
> Jeff Katz
>
>
>