[achille]

Here's a video of James Gosling showing the the Star7 PDA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg8OBYixL0

It's absolutely mindblowing what they built in one year in 1992(!). It had had a touch screen and inertial scrolling.

[ww520]

These are true hackers! It is absolutely mind boggling how far ahead they were 20 years ago.

[Someone]

Nice, but more a research vehicle than a PDA. About three times as thick as the later Newton, which wasn't known for its thinness, and does not look battery operated yet (scroll to 8:45 in the video)

Also, 1992 was late for touch screens. Plato (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato_computer) had one in 1972, and wasn't even the first (http://billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html)

So, like almost everything in technology, once you zoom out enough, things that seemed outliers start to fit in patterns.

[gst]

Wouldn't that be prior art to Apple's scrolling patent?

[monochromatic]

Prior art? Sure.

Invalidating prior art? Well, that's a very different question.

[untitledly]

Sadly the modern legal system is owned by whoever has the most money to throw at lawyers.

[monochromatic]

What are you even talking about?