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"[Science fiction] is the only kind of writing that allows you to look at the world we live in and change one piece at a time."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Pocket Computer | ||
| A pocket-sized computer. |
| "...Aub!" There was something imperative about his manner of biting off that one syllable name, but then he was a great Programmer speaking to a mere Technician. "Aub! How much is nine times seven?"
Aub hesitated a moment. His pale eyes glimmered with a feeble anxiety. "Sixty-three," he said. Congressman Brant lifted his eyebrows. "Is that right?" "Check it for yourself, Congressman." The congressman took out his pocket computer, nudged the milled edges twice, looked at its face as it lay there in the palm of his hand, and put it back. |
| From The Feeling of Power,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Worlds of Science Fiction in 1958 Additional resources -
|
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.
Rod Blaine scowled at the words flowing across the screen of his pocket computer. The physical data were correct, but everything else was obsolete...
"Sinclair wants to do some outside work while we're dirtside." He took out his pocket computer and wrote quickly with the attached stylus. "Let's see, we're about one and a half billion kilometers from New Scotland, that's uh, make it a hundred hours to turnover. About two hundred hours' travel time, plus what we spend on Dagda...
(Radio Shack Pocket Computer PC-1)
I should also mention the handbag computer from The Futurological Congress (1983) by Stanislaw Lem.
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and Technology from The Feeling of Power
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and Technology by Isaac Asimov
Tech news articles related to The Feeling of Power
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Pocket Computer-related
news articles:
- HTC Magic Smartphone At Google IO
| AVATECT Prevents Spoofing Of Avatars |
| I Really Want A Folding Computer |
| Galaxy Z Fold 3 Perfect For William Gibson's 'Control-Face' |
| Poor Humans. Miami Herald Bot Writes Great Real Estate Articles. |
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'... iron tubes... the ends of the tubes were joined to each other...to preserve it from the action of the seawater.'
'Mr. Garden, you are in no condition to drive....'
'A cable, here, from the controller to the interface plug... wires from that to the brain.'
'The slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...'
'Holodeck 4 was waiting to be programmed...'
'... he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'I stood in line for half an hour for this, and it's just a blob!'
