In 1991 when "pen computing" was all the rage, a start-up company called "Momenta" came out with a "pentop" MS-DOS based pen computer with a pie-menu-like "command compass", whose user interface was done in Smalltalk.

Remember that this was in 1991, the same year Go Corporation finally released PenPoint, and a year before the 1992 founding of Palm Computing (which took over the Pen market for many years) and the release of Microsoft Windows 3.1 in 1992 (the first version of Windows that wasn't intolerably irritating), and the release of Microsoft Windows for Pen Computing in 1992 (which was a big flop). So there was a huge amount of excitement around pen computing.

At Momenta's big unveiling event, I first chatted up the founder and then the lead software developer, and told them all about pie menus, and asked them about their "command compass", and congratulated them both for using Smalltalk, which the founder had made a big point about during his presentation, and who had just bragged to me that he was the one who made the successful decision to use Smalltalk.

When I told the software developer that the founder had just taken credit for the decision to use Smalltalk, he got pissed off and exclaimed, "What??! That was MY idea, and he fought against it tooth and nail every step of the way! He said nobody would ever use Smalltalk because it was a "homosexual" programming languages! And I proved to him it was a great idea by developing the entire user interface with the command compass and pen support on schedule, and now he's taking credit for it! Damn him!"

I suggested, "I think he must have Smalltalk confused with Lisp," and we both had a good chuckle at his homophobic credit-usurping founder's expense.

But not even a heterosexual programming language like Smalltalk can save you when you're going up against the Microsoft Windows for Pen Computing hype machine, and they went broke soon after shipping.

As it turned out, Momenta should have bought another vowel and consonant when they were naming their company, and called it "Momentary".

https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=17...

https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/a/pdf/Momenta%20B...

>The Momenta was a system that was generating a lot of excitement. As with the Active Book, a lot of the UI was done in Smalltalk, and it may have been the first commercial system to use radial (or pie) menus. We got a development system at the University of Toronto, but the company went broke very soon after shipping, so we never got the final product. They are extremely rare, so it took me a long time to find this one. Could the company have survived? Impossible to say. What I find interesting was how different their industrial design was than anyone else's. Perhaps they tried too hard and got over extended. The resulting hardware was a bit to fiddly for my taste—but that is through today's eyes. The founder has written a fair bit about the experience, and I believe that the case studies are worth reading by would-be entrepreneurs.

https://books.google.nl/books?id=RD0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA76&lpg=PA...

>Info World, November 11, 1991, Page 76.

>Microsoft Corp. and Go Corp. aren't the only ones jockeying for a position in the emerging market of pen computing.

>Two-year-old Momenta Corp. recently coined the term "pentop" computer and announced a complete pen-based system, the size of a clipboard that includes a detachable keyboard, digitizer screen, and pen.

>But the most interesting, perhaps, is the approach Momenta has taken in software. Using MS-DOS 5.0, Momenta is offering two operating modes: standard DOS and an environment based on Digitalk's Smalltalk V. Bundled with the system are a suite of appllications developed in Smalltalk, including a word processor, a spreadsheet, and communications software. The system even comes with a built-in fax modem and software.

>The key for Momenta, according to company officials, is to deliver a complete system as early as possible; DOS-based applications allow them to do just this. "We knew that a complete system approach had to happen right away," says Kevin Mankin, Momenta director of product marketing.

>Just as the use of Smalltalk as Momenta's development environment represents a departure from the mainstream, so does the user interface, which features a circular menu structure called the Command Compass, rather than the linear menu structure that has become standard across GUIs.

>The system will also run Microsoft Window for Pen Computing when it becomes available early next year, mainly because of the environment's "insurance" value. But this is leading some observers to assume that the system will become primarily a Windows for Pen Computing machine. "By the middle of next year, the majority of things running on it will be Windows applications," says Bill Lempesis, editor of Pen Vision News, in Pleasanton, California.

>Mankin contends that even if Windows does become the operating environment of choice for users of the system, corporate and commercial developers will continue to develop software in Smalltalk, because of the elegance of the environment.

>"One of the appeals of our product is the variety of powerful tools provided," Mankin says. "Smalltalk is an incredibly productive environment. Some of the largest software developers and some of the largest IS departments develop under Smalltalk.

>Whether developers opt to develop Momenta applications using Smalltalk remains to be seen. So far, only two vendors have announced plans -- Rupp Technology, with a word processor and PenWare, with its PenCell spreadsheet.

>There are still other differences in Momenta's approach. While Go contends that the earliest adopters of pen computing technology will be industry- or company-specific applications, such a sales-force automation and inventory control, Momenta is targeting the horizontal market of white-collar professionals and office workers.

>Its phrase "pentop" refers to those systems in broad use, rather than to those used by the "mobile worker," who is the PenPoint buyer.

>Yet another contender in the pen software arena hoping for broad horizontal appeal is PenDOS, from Computer Intelligence Corp. (CIC) of Redwood Shores, California. Much like Windows for Pen Computing, PenDOS provides some pen functionality even to unmodified DOS applications, and hardware vendors have licensed it to include with their systems along with the other major alternatives.

>With this strategy, it will be up to the customer to decide which approach is the right one.