Laptop History

A visitor has written in asking about the history of laptops, who designed the first one and why laptops were created.Answer: I'll answer this with the last question first. Laptops were designed and created so that workers could have a more portable way to work and work in different locations.
The early laptops did not resemble the laptop we know today in any way shape or form. They were very heavy, had very small displays, and lacked hard drives; everything ran from the RAM or floppy disks. Early laptops were very bulky and not sleek at all.

In 1981 the Osborne Computer Company released the Osborne 1, which when closed up, looked similar to a sewing machine case. It was powered by an electrical connection with an optional battery backup, used two 5 ¼" floppy drives (mounted to the right and left of the display), and included a modem port. The display was only 5-inches wide and could show only 52 characters per line. I think you could consider the Osborne to be the first rugged laptop.

Gavilan introduced the Gavilan Mobile Computer in 1983. It featured the clamshell design where the screen folded over the keyboard when closed, weighed in at 9 pounds, and could run on nickel-cadmium batteries for close to 9 hours.

Radio Shack released the TRS-80 Model 100 (also in 1983)and the TRS – 80 Model 200 in 1986. This later model was more compact, had a larger display and better battery power, and included built-in software. I remember using the TRS-80 (Trash 80) for creating simple documents and thinking this was pretty high tech at that time. It was certainly more fun than using a typewriter.

IBM released its version of a laptop computer - the 5155 Portable Personal Computer in 1984. It had two double-sided 5 ¼" drives and 640K RAM. Like all laptops to this point, the 5155 didn't support graphics and was used for text-based information processing only.

Compaq broke the graphics barrier in 1988 when it introduced the SLT/286 Laptop. It weighed in at a hefty 14 pounds , and had a 1.44 floppy drive and 286 processor. NEC joined the party with the NEC UltraLite, which weighed just 4.4 pounds and had overall dimensions of 11.75" (W) X 1.4" (H) X 8.3" (D).

Macintosh came onto the laptop scene in 1989 with the Macintosh Portable. It weighed between 16 and 17 pounds (yikes!) and had a 9.8-inch 640 x 400 active matrix screen. Its best feature was an operation time of close to 10 hours on a lead-acid battery. These early laptops evolved into the PowerBook line and now the MacBook line.

The 1990s saw the release of faster, sleeker machines with more storage, more ports and connectors, improved displays, and a concentration on keeping the weight down. The Apple Macintosh PowerBook line and the IBM ThinkPads became major contenders of the times.

Companies now create new laptops with faster processors and more features packed in smaller packages and they are very different from the original portable computing solutions.

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