Ferranti MRT
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The Ferranti Market Research Terminal (MRT) was, arguably, the world’s first application-specific handheld computer.[1][2] It was designed specifically for the market research sector as a means to augment the regular clipboard schemes that, at the time, were common-place, in social and market research.[3] Despite having an appearance of a calculator built into a clipboard, the reality was that the unit contained a sophisticated form of programmable data-logger that, in response to an interviewer reading questions to the interviewee, had answers digitally recorded (for later uploading and analysis) via pressing appropriate keys on the unit. The unit contained a bespoke operating system to support field based market research. The Ferranti Market Research Terminal (MRT) is also of historical significance to the computing industry since it marked the last original computer design from Ferranti, a long established business (started 1882) that had risen to fame through a collaboration Manchester University to produce the "Mark 1", the world’s first commercial computer and later with Cambridge University producing the "Atlas" and "Titan" computers which, at their peak, held around 25% of the computing market.
Ferranti Plc produced two versions that were labelled the MRT-100 and MRT-200 and based on an original 1978 prototype called the Questronic which had been designed at Sheffield University as part of a collaboration between the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering and the Department of Geography.[4] While it is difficult to imagine the context of this product development in the late seventies, the IBM PC (which has brought the Windows desktops and laptops that are now commonplace) was only introduced on 12 August 1981. If one ignores calculators, then handheld computers appeared in July 1980 with, perhaps, the first being the Tandy Pocket Computer (Radio Shack TRS-80 Pocket Computer). Later in the same year, Matsushita (now the Panasonic Corporation) produced a handheld computer marketed under the Panasonic and Quasar brand. However, these devices were, of course, general purpose handheld computers unlike the application-specific MRT introduced by Ferranti. A merger in 1989 with the American "International Signal & Control Group" (ISC), led to Ferranti going into bankruptcy in December 1994. With that came the end of the Ferranti MRT and, effectively, Ferranti with its long lineage of UK innovative computing and electronics research, development and manufacture.