The Compaq Concerto was a detachable

laptop computer A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

made by

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

, introduced in 1993. Concerto was the first

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...

manufactured by Compaq on a large scale, and can be considered a very early form of a

2-in-1 PC A 2-in-1 PC, also known as convertible laptop, 2-in-1 tablet, 2-in-1 laptop, 2-in-1 detachable, laplet, tabtop, laptop tablet, or simply 2-in-1, is a portable computer that has features of both tablets and laptops. Before the emergence of ''2- ...

Specifications

There were three Concerto models, varying in hard disk capacity, and processor speed. All had 4 MB of RAM soldered to the motherboard, which was expandable to 20 MB using proprietary memory modules. There were two processor options: Intel 486SL @ 25 MHz or 33 MHz. The 25-MHz model was available with either a 120-MB or 240-MB IDE hard disk drive, and the 33-MHz model had a 240-MB IDE hard disk drive. Both models had a built in 3.5" 1.44-MB floppy disk drive. All models shipped with

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

6.2, with Compaq's unique set of DOS extensions for power management, configuration and model specific help.

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

for PEN Computing Version 1, which was Windows 3.1 with necessary add-ons for pen operation — including

handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other dev ...

- was also pre-installed. The Concerto was made with some help from Wacom and their associates *

Modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...

: Internal modem was available as add-on *

PCMCIA The Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) was a group of computer hardware manufacturers, operating under that name from 1989 to 2009. Starting with the PCMCIA card in 1990 (the name later simplified to ''PC Card''), i ...

: two Type II PCMCIA slots, could also be used as a single Type III PCMCIA slot *

Docking Station In computing, a docking station or port replicator (hub) or dock provides a simplified way to ''plug-in'' a mobile device, such as a laptop, to common peripherals. Because a wide range of dockable devices—from mobile phones to wireless mouse� ...

: a Concerto specific docking station was available The Concerto was not a very successful laptop, but it did have some special features: a detachable keyboard, and a pen & touch screen (the touch screen only worked with the special pen). It could be considered to be ahead of its time. Its screen had

Wacom () is a Japanese company headquartered in Kazo, Saitama, Japan, that specializes in manufacturing graphics tablets and related products. Headquarters locations The main headquarters are located in Kazo, Saitama, Japan. Its office in the USA ...

functionality as mentioned above *The pen had a button which could produce a

double-click A double-click is the act of pressing a computer mouse button twice quickly without moving the mouse. Double-clicking allows two different actions to be associated with the same mouse button. It was developed by Bill Atkinson of Apple Computer (n ...

right-click A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choice ...

. (Touching the screen gave a single-click.) *The position of the pen could be detected, and the correctly placed pointer could be displayed, even when the pen was up to 1 cm away from the screen. This could e.g. trigger

tooltip The tooltip, also known as infotip or hint, is a common graphical user interface (GUI) element in which, when hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element, such as a description of a button's f ...

text display in newer

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s. The Concerto was a unique design, in as much as it was "upside-down" - the main body including the motherboard, hard disk drive, floppy disk drive, and expansion slots were behind the screen. The detachable keyboard was used as the lid but could be completely removed, at which point the Concerto became what is known as a slate PC. The pen was connected to the Concerto through an RF link, and there was a compartment in the Concerto for the pen.

References

{{Compaq

Concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typi ...

Convertible laptops Computer-related introductions in 1992