Appendix: Timeline

BC

  • 14th century BC - evidence of wax tablets usage (see Uluburun shipwreck)

  • 500 BC - art depicting writing with a wax tablet and stylus

  • Wax tablets used by ancient Romans and Greeks

1800s

  • 1860s - Pantelegraph

  • 1888 - Teleautograph patented by Elisha Gray

1950s

  • 1957 - Stylator, the first use of a stylus in an electronic computing device

  • 1957 - Lightpen - first tech that allows a suser to draw directly on the screen

1960s

  • 1963 - SketchPad software created by Ivan Sutherland

  • 1964 - The RAND Tablet

1970s

  • 1975 - BitPad by Summagraphics

  • 1979 - Apple Graphics tablet released

1980s

  • 1981 - Quantel Paintbox released

  • 1982 - Adobe founded (December 1982)

  • 1983 - KoalaPad released

  • 1983 - Wacom founded (July 12 1983)

  • 1983 - Wacom produces first drawing tablet with a battery-powered pen

  • 1984 - Wacom launches WT-460M - the first tablet with stylus not attached by cord to the tablet [1a]

  • 1987 - Wacom releases first drawing tablet with EMR technology

  • 1987 - Wacom creates a Mac app called Pressure Paint - may be the first application to support pressure sensitivity available on a computer available to consumers

  • 1989 - GRiDPad by GRiD Systems Corporation - first tablet computer

1990s

  • 1990 - Adobe Photoshop released (Feb 19, 1990)

  • 1991 - Painter (later Fractal Design Painter) published - one of the very earliest apps to support drawing tablets

  • 1993 - Quantel Paintbox discontinued

  • 1993 - Apple Newton released

  • 1999 - Microsoft starts working on Tablet PC

2000s

  • 2002 - First Tablet PCs released by OEMs running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

  • 2005 - XP-Pen founded (April 8, 2005)

  • 2006 - Microsoft Windows Vista released (Nov 30, 2006)

  • 2009 - Microsoft Windows 7 released (July 22, 2009)

2010s

  • 2010 - Apple iPad released (April 3, 2010)

  • 2011 - Huion founded (Mar 12, 2011)

  • 2011 - Procreate app released (Mar 16, 2011)

  • 2012 - Around this time many key Wacom patents expire

  • 2015 - Apple Pencil (1st gen) released (Nov 11, 2015)

  • 2018 - Apple Pencil (2nd gen) released (Nov 7, 2018)

2020s

  • 2023 - Apple Pencil (USB-C) released (Nov 1, 2023)

  • 2023 - Wacom patents for erasers in pens expires (need to verify)

  • 2023 - XP-Pen introduces X3 Pro pen - first in their line of pens to have chip on their PCB

  • 2024 - Huion introduces PW600 and PW600 pens - first in their line of pens to have chip on their PCB

Links

Quantel PaintBox

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