>>>In one of Larry Niven's RingWorld books (1970+) he describes a device that is striped to your wrist like a watch. This device (I beleive) was called a Joy-box. It not only told you the time, but was your phone, access to the central computer system, and even could make you a drink, and more. When I see what is continuously being added to the PDA these day, I can not help but think of the Joy-Boxes.
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>>That was too late. :)
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>>1959, "The 100 parsec road" - short science fiction stories book:
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>>Victor Saparin. "The last cabman"
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>>Described the personal hand-held device (fits in the pocket) called "universal bloc" that provides: videophone, sound and video recording, voice recognition, book/magazine/news/any information reading ("any book can be ordered and received within 3 minutes")and movie-on-demand capabilities. Can be connected to "the printing device". "Universal blocs" are used by everybody everywhere, including on the planes. Information recording is done on "a tiny hair-like element". One of the highlighted features is transferring the sound from the device to the individual user ears wirelessly and without headphones, silently to the others (we are not there yet :) Mentioned "a thousand other things you can do with this universal bloc".
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>>To me it is the most complete "dream PDA" description. No coffee making capabilities though :) However, one probably can dig out other SF book references like this.
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>>BTW, the individual flying mashines there are contolled by mind.
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>>Here is the full text of the story (in Russian).
>>http://books.rusf.ru/unzip/add-on/xussr_s/saparv22.htm?1/2
>
>Благодарю!

I believe it would be interesting for everybody to see the actual text. It just a few paragraphs that clearly describe it. I took the liberty to translate it.

"The plane passengers took out their universal blocks and were reading books, magazines and watching movies. Since the Central Library, and General Movie Company made available individual access for the universal blocks users many things changed in the world. Only five years ago there were real books and magazines on the planes, like a little library of a hundred books or so.

Now everybody has a pocket library containing tens of millions books, including rarities - any book can be viewed in universal block by ordering online and waiting no more than three minutes. The magazines distribution that was reaching the astronomical numbers not long ago, have recently dropped tremendously. It is discussed now if it's necessary to print and distribute the magazines at all. Really you need only a few printed copies for the online distribution for the universal block users. Only a few amateurs still like to browse the magazines having them in hands like in old times.

There were even more changes about the movies and theatres. All premieres are watched by millions of people, no matter where they are located. You may express your opinion to everybody who is concerned and listen to any opinion without leaving the airplane seat. (INTERNET! BLOGS! - Nick). And doing all this, you are not disturbing others. It's enough to press the "silent talk" button and the voice of the singer that you are watching on your universal block screen will be heard only by you - and wasn't it long ago that everybody used the bulky headphones?

Igor had enough time on the flight to do everything he wanted. He could take any empty seat and dig out his own universal block, like other passengers, and watch for example "Swan Lake" recording from any theatre.

If he just wanted, he could press the "replay" button on his universal block, and listen to his observations recorded on a tiny hair-like element this morning. Or dictate his thoughts, and the automatic printer would accurately print everything later. He could listen to any lecture for the last years. He could do a thousand more things with it."

So - not every SF writer had "lack of forethought" :)