Frog Design has published photographs of a tablet concept designed for Apple in the early 1980s. The prototype was developed by Hartmut Essligner, Frog Design's founder, but was ultimately never used by Apple. It was called "Bashful" after the Snow White character, and was designed alongside the Apple II series of computers.

Frog is a multinational design firm that developed several industrial design prototypes for Apple in the early 1980s, including several all-in-one models shown in photos published by PCWorld in July of 2009.

The prototype of the tablet published that Frog published on Monday show a Star Trek: The Next Generationesque flat panel display (super-duper fancy for the time) with a couple of different attached keyboards models. Accompanying the device is a stylus for users to interact with the device.

Another photo shows a panel with a keyboard and a ginormously long attached floppy drive, as well as an attached handle "for maximum portability."

The images are particularly relevant in light of Apple's media event planned for Wednesday, January 27th. Apple is expected to unveil a new iPhone OS-based tablet at that event, which is why Frog went digging in its archives for this look at the past.

You can see all the photos at Frog's Web site.

Frog Design Tablet Prototype