The AlphaSmart text editing device was originally designed by Apple engineers. When they couldn't get their employer to build it, they decided to do so themselves -- and ended up being a rather clever, long-lived device.

Sources:
Computer lab photo: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computingh...
Ketan Kothari photo: https://www.usfca.edu/faculty/ketan-k...
Joe Barrus photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/richard...
Apple Infinte Loop campus photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
AlphaSmart Pro owner's manual: https://archive.org/details/AlphaSmar...
"AlphaSmart: A History of One of Ed-Tech's Favorite (Drop-Kickable) Writing Tools": http://hackeducation.com/2015/07/25/a...
PC computer lab photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
"AlphaSmart Pro 2.1," Macworld, March 1997.
"Smart Keyboard for the Classroom," Computerworld, July 6, 1998.
AlphaSmart 2000 photo: https://www.journaldulapin.com/2018/0...
3rd-party SmartApplets: https://www.spectronics.com.au/catalo...
"Lightweight Note-Taker," PC World, March 2003.
AlphaSmart Neo photo and ad: https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/alpha...
"AlphaSmart files $58 million IPO," MarketWatch: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/alp...
Renaissance Learning acquires AlphaSmart press release: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...
AlphaSmart Neo 2 photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Laptop charging cart photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
AlphaSmart Neo discontinued: https://web.archive.org/web/201311140...
AlphaSmart 3000 with modded keyboard photo:   / finished_my_3000_mechanical_keyboard_mod  
LazyDog's AlphaSmart keyboard mod kit (no longer being sold): http://tilde.club/%7Ejy4m/alphasmart/... and https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=...
Freewrite devices: https://getfreewrite.com

---------------------------------------­------------------------------------

Please consider supporting my work on Patreon:   / thisdoesnotcompute  

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram! @thisdoesnotcomp

---------------------------------------­------------------------------------

Music by Epidemic Sound (https://www.epidemicsound.com).
Intro music by BoxCat Games (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Bo....