

The creation of the modern laptop - Deprecated
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/06/from-laptops-that-needed-leg-braces-to-laplets-engineering-mastery

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whoopdedo
How can you have a history of portable computing and not say a single thing
about LCDs? The innovation that contributed most to adoption of notebook
computers was the TFT screens with wider viewing angle and better colors. The
article talks about the CNC used to make the sleek computers of today. But it
wasn't any deficiency of manufacturing that made old laptops look boxy. They
had to build the frames to block as much light as possible from interfering
with the display.

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rasz_pl
There were laptops with plasma screens (grid compass 2 = turret from
'Aliens'), or EL. At least plasma ones had no trouble with direct sunlight.

[https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/rugrid-
laptop](https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/rugrid-laptop)

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agumonkey
Who would like a grid compass case for the Novena laptop ?

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bjwbell
"battery gains have been mostly linear for the last 25 years" After a whole
paragraph about how Li-ion improves by ~5% per year. Reporters don't
understand what exponential means!

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7zlg6ttmwdys
Growth of 5% per year is geometric, not exponential.

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TheCoelacanth
What's the difference? Wikipedia says that geometric growth is a special case
of exponential growth, so anything that exhibits geometric growth would, by
definition, exhibit exponential growth.

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protomyth
This article is a bit lacking in details. The GRiD Compass is not given credit
for being the first computer with a clamshell case (also a plasma screen).
Also, not mentioning the Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 is a crime in a discussion of
how the modern laptop came to be.

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Too
Previous submission from 2 weeks ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9637015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9637015),
which is funny because the article says it was published yesterday.

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klez
If you check that submission you'll notice that it's on the European version
of ars, while this is on the US edition. It seems the two publications are not
aligned.

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digi_owl
Yeah i was wondering why everyone was buzzing about it now, until i noticed
that it had been re-published on their .com site.

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ekianjo
> It is the result of trillions of hours of R&D over tens of thousands of
> years.

Wow, I did not know that Ars was so much into hyperbole. That claim is just
ridiculous.

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Boxbot
It's not hyperbole but you could probably say the same about any modern
computing device. Think about all the hours spent by the countless engineers
designing all the individual components in a modern laptop. Now think about
all the hours spent developing / iterating on previous versions of those
components to get them to the point they are now.

It's very impressive.

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ryanlol
Assuming "trillions" means 3 trillion. Divided by the average work hours
during a persons career that'd come up to about 33 million people.

That's quite a few engineers.

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scarmig
It's like the Civilization technology tree. To get the laptop, you first have
to invent Electronics, and before that Physics, and before that...

Easily adds up to trillions of hours.

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codecamper
25 years of laptops and we still have these damn screens on them that are
physically attached to the computer.

Any laptop engineers out there: I want a screen that I can detach from the
laptop, velcro it to a wall or to a stand and let me use my laptop with good
posture.

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UnoriginalGuy
Buy a Surface Pro 3 and use a wireless keyboard/mouse. That's more or less
what you're asking for. I will admit you'd need pretty heavy duty velcro to
attach it to the wall, but it likely is do-able if you don't mind having a
completely fuzzy-backed SP3.

