history of - What novel was the first to mention or predict a personal handheld computer?

Science-fiction writers are often credited with "inventing the future" with some of their ideas. For example, the idea of geostationary satellites is often attributed to Arthur C. Clarke.

What novel was the first to mention or predict a personal handheld computer that anyone could use?

Jerry Pournelle, in several TWiT podcasts, claims that he and co-writer Larry Niven came up with the idea in The Mote in God's Eye published in 1974, however, I'm sure an idea like it came along well before that.

Answer

Isaac Asimov's 1958 short story "The Feeling of Power" posits a population completely dependent on their "pocket computer" for doing basic arithmetic. However, they are not described in use for anything other than arithmetic (which is, after all what the big boxes did in 1958), so I don't know if it counts or not.

The way the characters use the things in the Niven/Pournelle reference more closely resemble the things we think of as PDAs/smartphones/netbooks.

Comments

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