History
By 1982 Apollo desktop computers were equipped with a touchpad on the right side of the keyboard.
A touchpad was first developed for Psion's MC 200/400/600/WORD Series in 1989. Cirque introduced the first widely available touchpad, branded as GlidePoint, in 1994. The touchpads included in Apple Computers’ PowerBooks were based upon Cirque’s GlidePoint technology; another early adopter of the GlidePoint pointing device was Sharp. Later, Synaptics introduced their touchpad into the marketplace, branded the TouchPad. Epson was an early adopter of this product.
As touchpads began to be introduced in laptops in the late 1980s, there was often confusion as to what the product should be called. No consistent term was used, and references varied, such as: glidepoint, touch sensitive input device, touchpad, trackpad, and pointing device.
Users were often presented the option to purchase a pointer stick, touchpad, or trackball. Combinations of the devices were common, though touchpads and trackballs were rarely included together.
Read more about this topic: Touchpad
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