GridPad/RF Moves to Take Wireless Pen-based Lead

But not yet a product…

Wireless communication was present at Fall Comdex, but Grid was the only vendor specifically targeting the pen-based computing with anything new. In a “technology announcement,” Grid was showing the GridPad/RF, a standard GridPad with a built-in radio frequency (RF) modem that’s compatible with wired Novell standards.

The system, which communicates via a 902-928 MHz direct sequence spread spectrum radio, is designed for wireless networking with a range of 500 to 1000 feet. In a typical scenario, a Novell server would have a PC/AT radio modem card installed that would exchange information with the mobile GridPad/RF devices.

The radio modem (on both the PC card and GridPad side) uses a 6502 processor, has 32 KBytes of RAM, 32 KBytes of ROM, and 128 bytes of EEPROM. The radio data rate is 242 Kbps and the power output is 500 mW. The NEC V20-based GridPad/RF — which includes the radio module, 2 Mbytes RAM, backlit screen, two PCMCIA slots, Novell drivers and network interface software — will be available in first quarter 1992 for $2780.

Other wireless communication vendors at Comdex included: Infralink (Arlington, VA), developers of infrared technology for wireless office environments; PowerTek (Englewood, CO), developers of a cellular “data workstation,” an integrated cellular phone/notebook computer; Telesystems (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada) who was demoing the new Arlan family of wireless networks products (Ethernet hub, bridge, and wireless LAN card); and Symbol Technologies (Bohemia, NY), with its Spectrum One spread spectrum RF network.