The device was designed by the Simputer Trust, a non-profit organization formed in November 1999 by seven Indian scientists and engineers led by Dr. Swami Manohar. The word "Simputer" is an acronym for "simple, inexpensive and multilingual people's computer", and is a trademark of the Simputer Trust. The device includes text-to-speech software and runs the GNU/Linux operating system. Similar in appearance to the PalmPilot class of handheld computers, the touch sensitive screen is operated on with a stylus; simple handwriting recognition software is provided by the program Tapatap.