Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ENCORE.COM!bzs
From: bzs@ENCORE.COM (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: DynaBook
Message-ID: <8901170418.AA08546@multimax.encore.com>
Date: 17 Jan 89 04:18:27 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 37


This month's CD-ROM Review Magazine has an ad and an article for a new
product called "Dynabook".

Basically it's a 10MHZ '286, removeable flat "double supertwist
display" (720x400), an "invisible touch screen" and CD-ROM drive with
audio capability (floppy, optional 20MB disk.) The keyboard port is
hidden and they seem to discourage getting a keyboard.

The article inside describes the display as 720x400 with four shades
of gray ``sound waves bounce across the front of the the screen to
find touches -- sort of a sonar for fingers. One of the advantages of
surface acoustic waves, Stokes says, is that the screen "learns" where
dirt, dust and fingerprints are and, after 15 seconds, ignores them.''

There's a picture of the machine (the display looks quite good), one
box about the footprint of a PC box tho much shorter (looks like most
of the height is a half-high CD-ROM drive) and a coil cord out to a,
perhaps, 8"x12"x1" screen with a stand in back (in the ad the person
is just holding it with one hand and touching with the other.)

The basic idea seems to be that they throw page images of a book (the
ad shows a page with an engraving and some text from a book about
Dante Rosetti) onto the screen and you use your fingers to turn pages,
mark text to be remembered etc.

The price listed is $4500 ($5000 with 20MB disk), the company is:

	Scenario, Inc
	235 Holland Street
	Somerville, MA 02144
	(617) 625-1818

		-Barry Shein, ||Encore||

P.S. I have no financial relationship with this company etc etc, I
just saw the ad and began typing...