George Wenzel

Embedded systems engineer. Developed smartphone hardware and chipset for deployment into Japanese digital phone network in 1987, the same year I founded the first "modern" ISP. The ISP was to provide Internet for our smartphone development, and to sell Internet access to pay for the Internet connection (the boss refused to buy us an Internet connection, so I decided to build my own ISP let the BBS community pay for our Internet). Our smartphone was to use Internet protocols, and came in a desktop as well as pocket version. The phone was called the "Intelliphone", and the chips I designed were intended to allow manufacturers to make Internet connected appliances for applications ranging from cellphones to desktop systems. My prototype cellphone had no buttons, just an LCD and touchscreen interface, the boss (Gary Kildall) called it the application defined user interface. It came years before the iPhone or any other smartphone. But I like /invented/ IOT before it was cool...