The evolution of laptops and portable computers
This was the first portable computer the IBM 5100
Here it's shown powered on and attached to an external monitor
Although weighing 55 pounds, it was much lighter and portable than previous computers
The Xerox note-taker was a bit more portable and its keyboard folded out to reveal its screen it employed
What was then highly advanced technology including?
256 kilobytes of RAM and a 5 megahertz Intel CPU
Launched in April 1981. The Osborne one is recognized as the first laptop computer
It was the first commercially successful
portable computer costing eighteen hundred dollars weighing 25 pounds and shipping with a large bundle of software
Later that year Epson released a tiny battery powered portable computer that traded screen size for convenience
It was hailed by Businessweek magazine as the fourth revolution in personal computing
And create a few problems
Unless it's the new absent HX 20 notebook computer
It does what most computers do without the power
With a built-in screen and printer you can do real computing and word processing anywhere
The grid compass was the first portable computer that resembled our current laptops
Because of its high price and specialized application. It was mostly used by the US government
NASA used it on the space shuttle during the early 1980s as it was both powerful and lightweight and
The Special Forces used them for their ruggedness and use of solid-state memory
The trs-80 sold through RadioShack was popular with journalists
They could type about 11 pages of text and then transmit it for editing using the built-in modem
Radio Shack's revolutionary model
100 computer it's a word processor phone directory and dialer it even communicates with the office computer
In 1984 the Commodore SX 64 was the first portable computer to feature a full-color display screen
It weighed about 20 pounds and sold for nine hundred and ninety five dollars
It shipped with 64 kilobytes of RAM and a one megahertz CPU
It did not sell particularly well but became popular with user groups and software developers
They could quickly pack and unpack the machine to use for copying software or giving demonstrations
The IBM PC convertible was the first laptop to use the three and a half inch floppy disk format
Which went on to become the industry standard?
Like modern laptops, it featured power management and the ability to run from batteries
The SLT
286 was the first battery-powered laptop to support an internal hard disk drive and a vga compatible LCD screen
It weighed 14 pounds in
1989 the NEC ultralight was considered to be the first notebook style laptop since it weighed less than five pounds
It was priced around five thousand dollars and shipped with an 8 megahertz CPU
After the failure of their first laptop Apple reworked the concept and released the power book line in October 1991
They immediately caused a stir in the industry with the dark gray cases and the positioning of the pointing device
It will let you run ms-dos software
It will let you run Macintosh software
It will let you run away
In 1992 Olivetti developed and released the first laptop featuring a touchpad
The position near the base of the screen was the norm as most applications were text-based and did not require a pointing device
That same year Olivetti released a smaller laptop the cuaderno
Capable of audio recording while the computer was off an almost instant boot up
It shipped with a 16 megahertz CPU one megabyte of RAM and 20 megabytes of hard disk space
The concerto was the first convertible laptop
It had a detachable keyboard pen and touch screen
But the touchscreen only worked with the special pen like today's tablets. Most of the electronics were housed with the screen
This laptop was definitely ahead of its time
In
2002 the portage 8 was the thinnest laptop to be developed at only three-quarters of an inch of the thickest part
It also featured the first 1.8 inch hard drive in a laptop
The TC 1100 had a very unique design it was a hybrid laptop which included a touchscreen stylus and tablet mode
Unfortunately Windows XP was not a touch friendly OS hampering its success
Like the concerto this was another laptop that was ahead of its time
Asus released the 701 in October 2007, which was the first netbook on the market
It featured a 7-inch screen an Intel Celeron M processor and a 4 gigabyte hard disk
The yoga 13 was one of the first modern hybrid laptops taking advantage of Windows 8 touch interface
The name yoga is a reference to the unit's design which allows for different
configurations
The Razer Blade was the first true portable gaming laptop at point nine inches thin and weighing
6.5 pounds the blade Pro was the most portable 17-inch gaming laptop in its class
The yoga book hybrid laptop brought even more functionality in 2016
By using a digitizer panel as the keyboard. The user was able to draw write and type on the same panel
The trade-off was the lack of haptic feel and feedback when in keyboard mode
The 2018 version of the yoga book now uses e ink for the keyboard panel
Eing allows for a more natural drawing surface and for custom input entry layouts depending on the application being used
And most importantly it allows for reading without wasting any battery or having to carry a second device
Asus is currently working on project Precog which consists of a dual monitor laptop similar to the yoga book
but without the limitations of e ink
Both could be used as monitors by connecting an external keyboard
Or both monitors can be used for gaming or for presentations
In laptop mode one monitor is used normally while the other is used as the keyboard or control panel
