Last year the lawyers of the Samsung company heard Jony Ive in a trial in which the Asian company was accused of infringing some of Apple's patents for the tablet iPad. During these hearings were presented some sketches of the iPad, as it looked at the beginning of the 2000s when Apple was not yet ready to present it to the whole world. Practically, the tablet looks like a thinner MacBook, but otherwise it is almost the same as we know it today, except of course the case, which was modified to allow the development of a more pleasant design.
My recollection of first seeing it is very hazy, but it was, I'm guessing, sometime between 2002 and 2004, some but it was I remember seeing this and perhaps models similar to this when we were first exploring tablet designs that ultimately became the iPad.
Now such a tablet would not have had many chances to enter the market without problems, but at that time I think it would have been quite successful.
