Created: 11 October 2026 · Last edited: 13 October 2026

First presented at the Microsoft Corporate Seminar on 5 June 2003, Sharp's first Tablet PC, code-named Mebius MURAMASA PC-TN1-H1W, is a 12.1-inch, wide-angle, 1024 × 768 px convertible notebook. Flip the display over and you're holding a large-screen tablet you can use with the dedicated pen for presentations, sketching, drawing and writing – all thanks to the electromagnetic induction digitiser.

The TN1 was decently powered: it had a low-voltage Pentium M processor clocked at 1.1 GHz with enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology, configurable RAM ranging from 256 to 768 MB, 64 MB of shared video memory, and a 30 GB HDD.

All of this is crammed into a body measuring 290 × 229.4 (min) / 256.7 (max) × 28.8 mm – not very impressive in terms of thinness thickness – and weighing a hefty 1.9 kg. I've done a few presentations with my Fujitsu Lifebook U939X, which weighs almost half as much at 1.0 kg, and, man, my forearm started to feel numb after just 30 minutes. Don't count me in for presentations longer than 4:59 min on the Muramasa TN1, no. But that's technology evolving for you.

It must be admitted that Sharp was lagging behind the competition in this department. The Toshiba Portégé 3500 had the same screen size and specs and weighed 1.85 kg although it was physically (slightly) larger at 295 × 234 × 29.9/32.8 mm. And the ACER TravelMate C110, packing a 10.4" screen, boasted a slim 1.45 kg line with a marginally weaker processor.

The Muramasa TN1 had a built-in modem capable of download speeds of up to 56 kbps and upload speeds of up to 33.6 kbps, which was standard in 2003. It's almost four years before YouTube becomes a thing, so don't fret, there's nothing to stream-watch yet. But the TN1 had built-in Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) in case, you know, you did find something to watch online.

A great feature is that you could connect the Muramasa tablet to an external display and it would still support the maximum resolution of 1024 × 768 px with all those 16.77 million colours simultaneously.

A security feature you didn't see every day in 2003 was the fingerprint reader (a swipe-type Atmel FingerChip sensor): you could use it for logon security and to protect access to the hard drive or selected applications.