One of the things was the Apple Newton which I'm sure Richard had since he was always an early adapter of all things Apple. They had the right idea obviously given iPhones and iPads.
From Wikipedia:
The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants developed and marketed by Apple Inc. An early device in the PDA category – the Newton originated the term "personal digital assistant" – it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started developing the platform in 1987 and shipped the first devices in 1993. Production officially ended on February 27, 1998. Newton devices run on a proprietary operating system, Newton OS; examples include Apple's MessagePad series and the eMate 300, and other companies also released devices running on Newton OS. Most Newton devices were based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting-based input.
The Newton was considered technologically innovative at its debut, but its high price and early problems with its handwriting recognition feature limited its sales. Apple cancelled the platform at the direction of Steve Jobs in 1998.
