The Compaq Concerto was a detachable

laptop computer A laptop computer or notebook computer, also known as a laptop or notebook, is a small, portable personal computer (PC). Laptops typically have a Clamshell design, clamshell form factor (design), form factor with a flat-panel computer scree ...

made by

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology, information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compati ...

, 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 computers ...

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 laptop, also known as 2-in-1 PC, 2-in-1 tablet, laplet, tabtop, laptop tablet, or simply 2-in-1, is a portable computer that has features of both tablets and laptops. 2-in-1 PCs consist of portable computer components within light ...

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 Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

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 op ...

6.2, with Compaq's unique set of DOS extensions for

power management Power management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers, computer CPUs, computer GPUs and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power ...

, configuration and model specific help. Windows 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 handwriting, handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens ...

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

Modem The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...

: Internal modem was available as add-on * PCMCIA: two Type II PCMCIA slots, could also be used as a single Type III PCMCIA slot *

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

: 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 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 Tim Mott of Xerox Palo Alto Resear ...

or right-click. (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 hoverbox, hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element, such as a description of a ...

text display in newer

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

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 ...

2-in-1 PCs Computer-related introductions in 1992