Byte by Bite

Laptop computers have come a long way

by Marv Dealy

Published June 10, 2005

According to a group called Current Analysis (http://www.currentanalysis.com/), sales in May of laptop computers outpaced sales of desktop computers. In a story by Iain Thomson at VNUNET (vnunet.com) we learn that retail sales of laptop computers were 53.9% compared to 45.9% in the same month a year ago.

This trend makes complete sense to me. Both prices and performance of laptops are coming in line with desktop computers, and believe me it’s a lot easier to carry your work around with you on a laptop.

I’ve used laptops for years, and can’t imagine being without one. I didn’t own one but I do remember the Osborne 1, the first “luggable” computer I ever saw. Priced at $1795 when it was introduced in April of 1981, the computer weighed 24.5 lbs., had a Zilog Z80 CPU, was equipped with a whomping 64K RAM, and boasted a 5” text-only monitor.

The Zilog CPU was also used in a bunch of other “home computers” such as the Radio-Shack TRS-80 and the Kaypro.

The Osborne didn’t have any hard drive; data storage was accomplished via floppy disks (two 5.25” 100K drives that you could really bend; hence, “floppy disks”). The operating system was CP/M, this being the BD days (before DOS).

A modem was optional, and with a transfer rate of 300 baud was quite the sensation a year after it’s release when there were all of 200 message boards around the world that could be reached with the system.

An aside: the card swipe machines you use at the market to pay for your groceries still transmit at 300 baud I’m told, as the amount of data the point of sale machines need to transmit is so tiny that a faster modem makes no sense.

The Osborne was an instant success, helped a great deal by the fact that $1500 worth of software was included with the computer. Yet, in September of 1983 Osborne was bankrupt, in part because people were already moving toward the IBM PC and in part because the company had shot itself in the foot by announcing new models that weren’t ready to bring to the market yet, causing a slump in sales of the Osborne while people waited for the newer stuff.

While the Osborne did have a keyboard that folded into the case containing the computer (closed, it mostly resembled a sewing machine), the first “clam shell” type computer was the GRiD Compass 1100. Supposedly developed for NASA, archive photos purportedly show the magnesium alloy-cased computer floating around the cabin on early space shuttle missions.

According to the August 1982 issue of Popular Science the GRiD cost some $8,000. There weren’t any disks—either floppy or hard—in the GRiD. It used bubble memory, which worked about as well as a slow hard disk but didn’t need power to hold its contents.

The Popular Science reference and much more is from an excellent article at About.com that talks about the history of laptop computers; check it out at http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllaptop.htm. The author, Mary Bellis, compiled an excellent timeline for the development of the laptop, which includes the following:

• The Epson HX-20 (4 line text LCD display and built in printer) released, 1981

• Radio Shack’s TRS-80 Model 100 introduced, 1983

• IBM announces the IBM 5155 Portable Personal Computer, 1984

• Radio Shack releases the TRS Model 200, 1986

• In 1989, what many consider to be the first “laptop” computer was introduced—the NEC UltraLite, a laptop sized computer which weighed less than 5 pounds.

• Also in 1989, Apple released their first portable, which later evolved into the PowerBook

• Compaq released its first notebook computer, the Compaq LTE in 1989

• Apple released the PowerBook 100, 140 and 170 in October, 1991

It’s with the PowerBook 180c that I joined the laptop generation. I bought mine at Whole Earth in Berkeley, and chose the 180c because it had a real track ball rather than a mouse pad (something I hate to this day). Its little CPU ran at a whopping 33 MHz, it could use a maximum of 14 MB ram, and it could be equipped with an astounding 160 MB hard drive. The 9” display was full color. OK, it was only an 8.4” screen. The price in 1993 at its introduction was over $4,000 and its current estimated value is $25.

Today, I work on a Toshiba Satellite laptop. Its 40 GB hard drive isn’t even half full after two years of use. Its CPU runs at 2 GHz, 60 times faster than my old Mac 180c. When new a couple of years back it cost about one third what I paid for the Mac 180c.

If you haven’t bought a laptop due to the prices, consider this: I just received a catalogue from PC Connection that advertises an HP laptop for $599.

Now let’s get serious, or is that Sirius, the Satellite radio bunch (http://www.sirius.com). My most recent Hertz (http://www.hertz.com) rental – a Chevy (http://www.chevrolet.com) Impala – came with a Sirius radio, the first opportunity I’ve had to play with the technology. (It’s true—the painted VW rarely leaves the county anymore.)

While tooling up Highway 49 toward a meeting in Sutter Creek, I was amazed at the clarity with which the 120 channels came in, including talk shows from the left, the right, and the recently-released Martha.

Yes, she has her own channel coming up. All Martha, all the time. Hmmm, how will she describe how she has arranged the guests around the Thanksgiving table over the radio.

In any event, I enjoyed the commercial free aspect of Sirius. While there are still DJs, at least they aren’t shilling tires for Crazy Al or whatever. One DJ, on the all-60’s channel (oh, shut up), was musing about a pair of 5” lifter shoes that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il (http://www.raptureready.us/jongil.htm) had recently purchased. The DJ wondered if ‘ol Kim would end up looking like an Oriental Frankenstein’s monster.