
April 2, 1986: A ‘Laptop’ Computer - anigbrowl
http://blogs.wsj.com/wsj125/2014/04/01/april-2-1986-a-laptop-computer
======
webwielder
In reviewing Apple's contributions to computing, people tend to overlook the
PowerBook, presumably because the first models were released during Jobs's
absence. But it really was revolutionary, and turned the hulking ergonomic
nightmares of the 80s into pretty much the form we have today. As a bonus,
Apple also pioneered the use of the trackpad a few years later.

During the iPhone presentation, Jobs actually mentions the importance of the
PowerBook in Apple's history. I always got a kick out of Jobs praising stuff
from the Sculley era like the PowerBook and QuickTime, as it signaled that he
recognized that Apple was bigger than him, and because Apple simply doesn't
get enough credit for some of the stuff they did the "dark days".

~~~
muyuu
The first laptop proper is probably the GRiD Compass 1101 (
[http://oldcomputers.net/grid1101.html](http://oldcomputers.net/grid1101.html)
)

Psion introduced trackpads in the late 80s and they didn't make it to
PowerBooks until the mid 90s. The capacitive trackpad was invented by Cirque
and it was Cirque's Glidepoint that Apple used originally.

~~~
agumonkey
I wish to 3d print the GRiD case, find a monochrome orange/black LCD, fit some
arm board into it and marry it. Maybe bunny huang open mobo ..

ps: There was one listed on a local 'craigslist' for a few bucks, I missed it
by a few days, it was deeply saddening.

~~~
smoyer
"fit some arm board into it"

How about making it a dock for your phone? It would be really cool to have a
hardware keyboard, bigger display, extended battery and external storage that
you could simply plug into the phone's USB port. If you make one for a Galaxy
S4, I'll certainly buy one!

~~~
agumonkey
In case this isn't well bred sarcasm, there are smartphone docking 'laptops'
already. Maybe not universal. And I didn't think about that because my
'feature phone' could probably not drive even a 1024x768 LCD.

~~~
smoyer
It wasn't sarcasm and I'm aware of at least a few of these docking stations.
But how cool and retro would a grid look-alike be?

~~~
agumonkey
Oh ok it's a tribute to the GRiD aesthetics revived in a dock.

------
lnguyen
How soon everyone forgets... The TRS-80 Model 100

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100)

~~~
spiritplumber
We still use one for autonomous vehicle monitoring (it talks to a packet
radio) because it's easy to read in the sun, and quick to type commands on.

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TheEzEzz
Did a patent war breakout when competitors "stole" the idea? (Genuinely
curious, not rhetorical)

------
acqq
For those wanting to know more, it's:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Convertible](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Convertible)

~~~
cstuder
>> Pressing the power button on the computer did not turn it off, but put the
machine into a "suspend" mode. <<

Wow, another piece of technology which is older than I thought.

~~~
acqq
At the time of magnetic memories the RAM content always survived the powering
off. Nobody was able to carry such computers though.

------
Patrick_Devine
Portable computers weren't new at this point. In fact, there already had been
several laptops on the market before this, including the GRiD Compass.
Portability wasn't new either, as Compaq and Corona Data Systems also made
"luggable" computers which had built in tiny CRT tubes.

~~~
mixmastamyk
I remember coveting the portable Commodore 64, hehe.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_SX-64](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_SX-64)

------
nemasu
1986 wasn't even that long ago, it baffles me how far tech has advanced since
then.

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah, but don't you get the feeling it has somehow slowed down in recent
history ? I haven't felt the need to change my laptop in like... 3 years or
something, while this would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago.

~~~
rimantas
I've just upgraded my early 2011 MB Pro with 16GB of RAM and SSD. Wow, was
that refreshing.

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah, the SSD is what made a bit difference recently, but it does not change
anything to the fact that CPU have more less stalled for laptops.

~~~
dredmorbius
Disk, not CPU, has been the performance barrier for much of computing. Largely
because of latency (from seek), which as yesterday's HN article noted, is
something you're stuck with.

You can increase your CPU capacity through palatalization (up to Amdahl's
limit), but disk sucks no matter what. Yes, with multiple channels you get
better overall throughput, but if you need two blocks that aren't contiguous
but are on the same media, you've just bought an eternity in compute time.

SSD cracks that barrier, and does it pretty spectactularly, so yes, it's been
a pretty big breakthrough.

The next phase may well be localization of a lot of services which are now
centrally web-hosted. While in aggregate, people need a lot of compute power,
individually, it's not much, and tools such as the FreedomBox offer the
opportunity to put that close to you, while distributing data for both data
integrity and thwarting surveillance (it's tough to run centralized
surveillance over a decentralized architecture).

Round-trip time for SAAS is itself significant, as is browser load. Cracking
both these nuts for the ultimate in edge-provisioned networks (the wall wart 6
feet from where you sit), and a movement away from browser-based apps to a
lighter-weight frameworks which is based on network transport but doesn't
impose a full browser overhead.

------
skywhopper
Seeing this microfiche image capture made me curious. Why are the historical
archives of these old papers not online in fully indexed, easily searchable
form? Even a pay-for service (excepting the public domain stuff) I could
accept, but I see that apparently ProQuest has the rights to provide that
service, and it's behind a paywall that's not even possible to directly
subscribe to without going through their sales team--presumably it's for
institutional use only.

Depressing how much of the world's content is locked away from the Internet
while we drown in cat videos and clickbait "news" sites.

------
ctdonath
Heh. I had one of those at work. Delightful, in that it was as compact &
portable as it was (competing with "sewing machine" designs more "luggable"
than portable). Weighted something like 15 pounds. One humorous design factor
was how peripherals, printer in particular, just snapped on to the back of the
unit - making for an oddly long device for the enthusiastic user.

And 28 years later, here I sit typing this on a MacBook Air...

~~~
jfim
A MacBook Air that probably cost less than the 1995$ price of the "base PC."

~~~
ekianjo
And a MacBook Air still costs significantly more than a regular "no-name"
laptop PC, anyway.

~~~
Mikeb85
And less than most worthwhile PC laptops...

~~~
ekianjo
Here we go again... sorry but you don't need a Retina screen and tin foil thin
notebook to get shit done. If you really do, you have big first world
problems... :P

~~~
Mikeb85
No you don't. But I paid 1500 for a ThinkPad T530.

------
honksillet
That'll never catch on.

------
spiritplumber
I had a Commodore 64-SX that fell off an office when they upgraded to 286s...
Good times. There was an easy way to get composite out from it, but I never
managed to.

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mixmastamyk
There's an incredible number of javascript trackers and garbage on that page,
to the extent that I'd support banning the site... surprising.

