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"I realized there was a heavy-duty change coming in biology, and I could write a really compelling novel about catastrophic evolution, punctuated equilibrium."
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Thanks to Brad Templeton for the tip on this item, and Winchell Chung for pointing me at the right thread.
Another relatively early use of this phrase is in Niven and Pournelle's classic 1974 novel The Mote in God's Eye:
He put the instrument away...
See also this usage from their 1981 novel Oath of Fealty.
Apparently, they also included some sort of wireless link, because (elsewhere in the novel) it says that, when the officers were off duty, they "could always be reached on their pocket computers."
Another early mention of a small "pocket computer" or note-taking device with some mathematical functionality built-in is the calculator pad from Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
Asimov also mentioned a "pocket-computer" in his 1975 story Point of View.
As far as I know, the first pocket computer sold as such was the TRS-80 PC-1 in 1980. It weighed 6.0 oz., had 1.5 kilobytes of RAM, was programmable in BASIC and cost $230.
![]() (Radio Shack Pocket Computer PC-1) I should also mention the handbag computer from The Futurological Congress (1983) by Stanislaw Lem. Comment/Join this discussion ( 15 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
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'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
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'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
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'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
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'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
Is There A Global Problem With Who Is Having Children?
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
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