For tablet computer visionary Roger Fidler, a lot of what-ifs

What if the iPad was not the original idea of the late Apple founder Steve Jobs?  What if a man that you have likely never heard of named Roger Fidler was a person who could see into the future.  According to this Washington Post piece in 1994, while running a lab dreaming up the future of newspapers, Fidler starred in his own video demonstrating a prototype he cooked up that was remarkably like the iPad — black, thin, rectangular, with text and video displayed on-screen.


Read on here to determine the rest of the story.

View Photo Gallery —  Nearly two decades after Roger Fidler made a 1994 video showcasing a prototype device that looks much like the iPad, the video went viral on the Web. It has led some skeptics to wonder whether Apple cribbed Fidler’s idea and it has become central to a patent war between the iPad maker and rival electronics maker Samsung.