Apple’s recent announcement of the iPad was easily the most anticipated tech news of the year. The iPad certainly had the majority of news-seekers “wowed” while many others were disgruntled Imagine that. But the history of Apple's iPad goes back a long way. When you start to look for the roots of iPad information, you find that the the birth of a so-called tablet computer actually began with Apple's Newton MessagePad 100, which was initially introduced back in 1993. The mechanics of the Newton were based on the ARM6 processor core with Acorn Computers. During the same time frame Apple also made a prototype PowerBook Duo-based tablet computer which was called the PenLite. Apple help off selling it to avoid impacting the sales of it's own MessagePad. Apple also released several more Newton-based PDAs, and discontinued the final product of it's type in 1998, that was the MessagePad 2100.