The IBM Simon, the device that became the catalyst for the worldwide smartphone revolution, turns 20.

It's set to become one of the star attractions at the Science Museum in London and will be featured in an exhibition that will explore the history of information and communication technology.

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IBM Simon was also the first device to merge a mobile phone with a personal computer. It could accomplish tasks such as writing and drawing, managing contacts and calendar events and send faxes.

It even had apps that could be accessed using a stylus and a touch screen.

IBM Simon is now on display at the Science Museum and will be a permanent piece at the Information Age gallery starting October 25.

It was once owned by an American project manager who worked for a construction firm. He used IBM Simon to receive and sign off on technical drawings via fax. IBM Simon eventually became an efficient way of not having to print anything on paper.

Unfortunately, it was a very impractical mobile device given it weighed half a kilo and its battery couldn't last longer than an hour. It had clunky cartridges for apps and only sold 50,000 units.

Priced at US$899 at the time, it was expensive for most people and only functioned in the United States. Since there was no mobile internet in the mid-90s, IBM Simon would only work via fax and it couldn't send emails unless it was connected to a PC.

The IBM Simon was a commercial flop but it was heralded as one of the precursors of a new breed of devices that combined the functions of a mobile phone and personal digital assistants.

The first device to ever use a Symbian mobile operating system is the Ericsson R380 from which the word "smartphone" was coined in 2000.

After 2002, smartphones were already receiving modest response from the market. For example, the Palm OS Treo already had a touchscreen and a working keyboard along with the popular Blackberry Quark series.

But it wasn't until 2007 when Apple launched its first iPhone where consumer interest suddenly peaked, making Apple a major gamechanger in the emerging smartphone market.

The first iPhone sold 6 million units that year and was the first ever to use finger input as a means of interacting with the device instead of using a stylus or a keypad.

It's been a long way since the creation of IBM Simon to the latest iPhone. But one problem is still prevalent among smartphone users: the perfect screen size.

According to a 1995 Home Office Computing review of the first smartphone, it could be that users are asking too much of PDAs but how can anyone fit a large touchscreen into an object that is supposed to fit in your pocket?   

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