Gryphon - the world's first Smart Phone, (1984)
integrated voice, data, video, and a scripting language interpreter (Nautilus) that provided phone features and Apps.
In 1984, 23 years before the iPhone was introduced, Dr. Norman Petty, a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories, demonstrated the world first "Smartphone", Gryphon, a fully integrated Voice, Data, and Video telephone with a scripting language-interpreter (Nautilus) that provided phone features and user applications (Gryphon Apps). Using Nautilus, Gryphon was the first phone to demonstrate feature operation in endpoints instead of in the central switch, an approach considered unprecedented in the switch centric world where it was developed.
Gryphon also included a directory that could use Nautilus scripts to provide caller specific feature operation.
Modern smartphones can provide different ringtones for each caller. Gryphon went much further, allowing a script for each caller. This, for example, allowed Gryphon to execute a Nautilus script to send a call from "Bill Collector" to the appropriate voice mailbox without ringing the phone or to generate a priority ringing tone when your boss "Luke Warm" calls. Outgoing calls from the directory could have their own Nautilus script. Each button (soft key) executes its own Nautilus script (Gryphon Apps).
Gryphon also included a directory that could use Nautilus scripts to provide caller specific feature operation.
Modern smartphones can provide different ringtones for each caller. Gryphon went much further, allowing a script for each caller. This, for example, allowed Gryphon to execute a Nautilus script to send a call from "Bill Collector" to the appropriate voice mailbox without ringing the phone or to generate a priority ringing tone when your boss "Luke Warm" calls. Outgoing calls from the directory could have their own Nautilus script. Each button (soft key) executes its own Nautilus script (Gryphon Apps).
Developed in 1984, before liquid crystal video displays (LCDs) were available, Gryphon used a small flat screen CRT for the display.
The next image shows a screen shot of the Gryphon display during a voice and video call with the soft keys, pioneered for Gryphon, overlaying the video display using the video as a color technique invented by Dr. Petty for Gryphon's graphics controller.
The next image shows a screen shot of the Gryphon display during a voice and video call with the soft keys, pioneered for Gryphon, overlaying the video display using the video as a color technique invented by Dr. Petty for Gryphon's graphics controller.
As an exploratory development, only a few Gryphon prototypes were built. They were often used in the customer briefing center and some trade shows to highlight Bell Labs innovations. Limited endpoint (phone) feature operation became commercially available in the PC/PBX Connection products, also developed by Dr. Petty.
The terms "Smart Phone" or "Smartphone" were first coined in 1995 to describe AT&T's Phone Writer Communicator.
Although today, Smartphones are a class of mobile phones and of multipurpose mobile computing devices,
Gryphon meets all the 1984 criteria of being a wired phone and a multipurpose computing device.