Surprisingly enough, the first touchscreen device was capacitive (like modern phones, rather than the resistive technology of the 1980s and 1990s) and dates back to around 1966. The device was a radar screen, used by the Royal Radar Establishment for air traffic control, and was invented by E. A. Johnson, for that purpose. The touchscreen was bulky, slow, imprecise, and very expensive, but (to its credit) remained in use until the 1990s). The technology proved to be largely impractical, and not much progress was made for almost a decade.