History of laptops
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The history of laptops describes the efforts, begun in the 1970s, to build small, portable
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s that combine the components, inputs, outputs and capabilities of a desktop computer in a small chassis.


Portable precursors


Portal R2E CCMC

The portable micro computer the "
Portal Portal often refers to: * Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel Portal may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...
" of the French company R2E
Micral Micral is a series of microcomputers produced by the French company Réalisation d'Études Électroniques ( R2E), beginning with the Micral N in early 1973. The Micral N was the first commercially available microprocessor-based computer. In 1986, ...
CCMC officially appeared in September 1980 at the Sicob show in Paris. The Portal was a portable microcomputer designed and marketed by the studies and developments department of the French firm R2E Micral in 1980 at the request of the company CCMC specializing in payroll and accounting. It was based on an
Intel 8085 The Intel 8085 ("''eighty-eighty-five''") is an 8-bit microprocessor produced by Intel and introduced in March 1976. It is software-binary compatible with the more-famous Intel 8080 with only two minor instructions added to support its added in ...
processor, 8-bit, clocked at 2 MHz. It was equipped with a central 64K byte
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
, a keyboard with 58 alphanumeric keys and 11 numeric keys (in separate blocks), a 32-character screen, a floppy disk (capacity - 140,000 characters), a thermal printer (speed - 28 characters/second), an asynchronous channel, a synchronous channel, and a 220-volt power supply. Designed for an operating temperature of 15–35 °C, it weighed and its dimensions were 45 × 45 × 15 cm. It ran the Prologue operating system and provided total mobility.


Osborne 1

The Osborne 1 is considered the first true mobile computer by most historians. Adam Osborne founded Osborne Computer and produced the Osborne 1 in 1981. The Osborne 1 had a five-inch screen, incorporating a modem port, two -inch floppy drives, and a large collection of bundled software applications. An aftermarket battery pack was available. The computer company was a failure and did not last for very long. Although it was large and heavy compared to today's laptops, with a tiny 5" CRT monitor, it had a near-revolutionary impact on business, as professionals were able to take their computer and data with them for the first time. This and other "luggables" were inspired by what was probably the first portable computer, the Xerox NoteTaker. The Osborne was about the size of a portable sewing machine, and could be carried on commercial aircraft. The Osborne 1 weighs close to and was priced at .


Compaq Portable

The Compaq Portable was the first PC-compatible portable computer created in 1982. The first shipment was in March 1983 and was priced at . The Compaq Portable folded up into a luggable case the size of a portable sewing machine, similar in size to the Osborne 1. The third model of this development, Compaq Portable II, featured high resolution graphics on its tube display. It was the first portable computer ready to be used on the shop floor, and for CAD and diagram display. It established Compaq as a major brand on the market.


Epson HX-20

The first significant development towards laptop computing was announced in 1981 and sold from July 1982, the 8/16-bit Epson HX-20. It featured a full-transit 68-key keyboard, rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries, a small (120×32-pixel)
dot-matrix A dot matrix is a 2-dimensional patterned array, used to represent characters, symbols and images. Most types of modern technology use dot matrices for display of information, including mobile phones, televisions, and printers. The system is al ...
LCD with 4 lines of text, 20 characters per line text mode, a 24 column
dot matrix printer A dot matrix printer is an impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires. Typically the pins or wires are arranged in one or several vertical columns. The pins strike an ink-coated ribbon and force contact between the ribbon ...
, a
Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ...
interpreter, and 16  KB of RAM (expandable to 32 KB). The HX-20's very limited screen and tiny internal memory, made serious word-processing and spreadsheet applications impractical and the device was described as "primitive" by some. In terms of mass storage, the HX20 could be fitted with a Microcasette Drive, which is powered and operated by the Main Unit. External Floppy Drives and even an Adapter for CRT output were also available.


Grid Compass

The first clamshell laptop, the Grid Compass, was made in 1982. Enclosed in a magnesium case, it introduced the now familiar design in which the flat display folded shut against the keyboard. The computer was equipped with a 320×200-pixel electroluminescent display and 384 
kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix '' kilo'' as 1000 (103); per this definition, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes.International Standard IEC 80000-13 Quant ...
bubble memory Bubble memory is a type of non-volatile computer memory that uses a thin film of a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas, known as ''bubbles'' or ''domains'', each storing one bit of data. The material is arranged to form a series o ...
. It was not IBM-compatible, and its high price (
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
8,000–10,000, equivalent to $- in ) limited it to specialized applications. However, it was used heavily by the U.S. military, and by
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
on the
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...
during the 1980s. The GRiD's manufacturer subsequently earned significant returns on its patent rights as its innovations became commonplace. GRiD Systems Corp. was later bought by the Tandy (now RadioShack) Corporation. The Grid's portability was restricted as it had no internal battery pack and relied on mains power.


Dulmont Magnum/Kookaburra

The first contender for true laptop computing was the 16-bit
Dulmont Magnum The Dulmont Magnum is an early laptop computer designed initially by Australian power line equipment manufacturer Dulmison Pty Ltd and subsequently marketed by Dulmont Pty Ltd. Exhibited in September 1983, it was the world's first true batt ...
, designed by David Irwin and John Blair of Dulmison, Australia, in 1982 and released in Australia in September 1983 by Dulmont. This battery-powered device included an 80 character × 8 line display in a lid that closed against the keyboard. The Dulmont was thus the first computer that could be taken anywhere and offered significant computing potential on the user's laptop (though weighing in at ). It was based on the MS-DOS operating system and applications stored in
ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...
(A:) and also supported removable modules in expansion slots (B: and C:) that could be custom programmed EPROM or standard word processing and spreadsheet applications. The Magnum could suspend and retain memory in battery-backed
CMOS RAM Nonvolatile BIOS memory refers to a small memory on PC motherboards that is used to store BIOS settings. It is traditionally called CMOS RAM because it uses a volatile, low-power complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) SRAM (such as ...
, including a
RAM Disk Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
(D:). A separate expansion box provided dual 5.25-inch floppy or 10 MB hard disk storage. The product was marketed internationally from 1984 to 1986. Dulmont was eventually taken over by Time Office Computers, who relabeled the brand "
Kookaburra Kookaburras are terrestrial tree kingfishers of the genus ''Dacelo'' native to Australia and New Guinea, which grow to between in length and weigh around . The name is a loanword from Wiradjuri ''guuguubarra'', onomatopoeic of its call. The ...
" and marketed 16- and 25-line LCD display versions.


Sharp and Gavilan

Two other noteworthy early laptops were the Sharp PC-5000 (similar in many respects to the
Dulmont Magnum The Dulmont Magnum is an early laptop computer designed initially by Australian power line equipment manufacturer Dulmison Pty Ltd and subsequently marketed by Dulmont Pty Ltd. Exhibited in September 1983, it was the world's first true batt ...
) and the
Gavilan SC The Gavilan SC is a laptop computer and was the first ever to be marketed as a "laptop". History The brainchild of Gavilan Computer Corp. founder Manuel (Manny) Fernandez, the Gavilan was introduced in May 1983, at approximately the same time a ...
, announced in 1983 but first sold in 1984, Gavilan filing bankruptcy the same year. Both ran the 8/16-bit
Intel 8088 The Intel 8088 ("''eighty-eighty-eight''", also called iAPX 88) microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on June 1, 1979, the 8088 has an eight-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and ...
CPU. The Gavilan was notably the first computer to be marketed as a "laptop". It was equipped with an internal floppy disk drive and a pioneering
touchpad A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...
-like
pointing device A pointing device is a human interface device that allows a user to input spatial (i.e., continuous and multi-dimensional) data to a computer. CAD systems and graphical user interfaces (GUI) allow the user to control and provide data to ...
, installed on a panel above the keyboard. Like the GRiD Compass, the Gavilan and the Sharp were housed in clamshell cases, but they were partly IBM-compatible, although primarily running their own system software. Both had LCDs, and could connect to optional external printers.


Kyotronic 85 ( Tandy Model 100)

The year 1983 also saw the launch of what was probably the biggest-selling early laptop, the 8-bit
Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommunic ...
Kyotronic 85. Owing much to the design of the previous Epson HX-20, and although at first a slow seller in Japan, it was quickly licensed by
Tandy Corporation Tandy Corporation was an American family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store. By the end of the 1950s, under the tutelage of then-CEO Charles Tandy, ...
,
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been par ...
, and
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
, who recognised its potential and marketed it respectively as the TRS-80 Model 100 line (or Tandy 100), Olivetti M-10, and
NEC PC-8201 The TRS-80 Model 100 is a portable computer introduced in April 26th, 1983. It is one of the first notebook-style computers, featuring a keyboard and liquid crystal display, in a battery-powered package roughly the size and shape of a notepad o ...
. The machines ran on standard
AA batteries AA, Aa, Double A, or Double-A may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * '' America's Army'', a 2002 computer game published by the U.S. Army * '' Ancient Anguish'', a computer game in existence since 1992 * Aa!, a J-Pop musical group * D ...
. The Tandy's built-in programs, including a BASIC interpreter, a text editor, and a terminal program, were supplied by
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
, and were written in part by
Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
himself. The computer was not a clamshell, but provided a tiltable 8 line × 40-character LCD screen above a full-travel keyboard. With its internal
modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
, it was a highly portable communications terminal. Due to its portability, good battery life (and ease of replacement), reliability (it had no moving parts), and low price (as little as US$300), the model was highly regarded, becoming a favorite among
journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
s. It weighed less than with dimensions of 30×21.5×4.5 centimeters (12×8½×1¾ in). Initial specifications included 8 kilobytes of RAM (expandable to 24 KB) and a 3 MHz processor. The machine was in fact about the size of a paper notebook, but the term had yet to come into use and it was generally described as a "portable" computer.


Data General/One

Data General's introduction of the
Data General/One The Data General/One (DG-1) was a laptop introduced in 1984 by Data General. Description The nine-pound battery-powered 1984 Data General/One ran MS-DOS and had dual 3.5" diskettes, a 79-key full-stroke keyboard, 128 KB to 512 KB of RAM, and a m ...
(DG-1) in 1984 is one of the few cases of a minicomputer company introducing a breakthrough PC product. Considered genuinely portable, rather than "luggable", it was a nine-pound battery-powered
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
machine equipped with dual 3-inch diskettes, a 79-key full-stroke keyboard, 128 KB to 512 KB of RAM, and a monochrome LCD screen capable of either the full-sized standard 80×25 characters or full CGA graphics (640×200).


Bondwell 2

Although it was not released until 1985, well after the decline of CP/M as a major operating system, the Bondwell 2 is one of only a handful of CP/M laptops. It used an 8-bit
Z-80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples we ...
CPU running at 4 MHz, had 64 KBs of
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
, and a 3.5" floppy disk drive built in, which was unusual for CP/M laptops. The flip-up LCD display's resolution was 640x200 pixels. Bondwell 2 also included MicroPro's complete line of CP/M software, including WordStar. The Bondwell 2 was capable of displaying bitmapped graphics. The price of the Bondwell 2 was listed at $995.


Kaypro 2000

Possibly the first commercial IBM-compatible laptop was the 8/16-bit
Kaypro Kaypro Corporation was an American home and personal computer manufacturer based out of San Diego in the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems (NLS) to compete with the popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a ...
2000, introduced in 1985. With its brushed aluminum clamshell case, it was remarkably similar in design to modern laptops. It featured a 25 line by 80 character LCD, a detachable keyboard, and a pop-up 90 mm (3.5-inch) floppy drive.


Toshiba T1100, T1000, and T1200

Toshiba launched the 8/16-bit
Toshiba T1100 The Toshiba T1100 is a laptop manufactured by Toshiba in 1985, and has subsequently been described by Toshiba as "''the world's first mass-market laptop computer''". Its technical specifications were comparable to the original IBM PC desktop, using ...
in 1985, and has subsequently described it as "''the world's first mass-market laptop computer''". It did not have a hard drive, and ran entirely from floppy disks. The CPU was a 4.77 MHz Intel 80C88, a lower-power-consumption variation of the popular
Intel 8088 The Intel 8088 ("''eighty-eighty-eight''", also called iAPX 88) microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on June 1, 1979, the 8088 has an eight-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and ...
, and the display was a monochrome, 640x200 LCD. It was followed in 1987 by the T1000 and T1200. Although limited floppy-based DOS machines, with the operating system stored in
ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...
on the T1000, the Toshiba models were small and light enough to be carried in a backpack, and could be run from Ni-Cd batteries. They also introduced the now-standard " resume" feature to DOS-based machines: the computer could be paused between sessions without having to be restarted each time.


IBM PC Convertible

Also among the first commercial IBM-compatible laptops was the 8/16-bit
IBM PC Convertible The IBM PC Convertible (model 5140) is a laptop computer made by IBM, first sold in April 1986. The Convertible was IBM's first laptop-style computer, following the luggable IBM Portable, and introduced the 3½-inch floppy disk format to the IB ...
, introduced in 1986. It had a CGA-compatible LCD and two 720 KB 3.5-inch floppy drives. It weighed .


Epson L3s

The Epson L3s was an early portable computer that ran MS-DOS and featured a parallel port.


Zenith SupersPort

The first laptops successful on a large scale came in large part due to a RFP by the
U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...
in 1987. This contract would eventually lead to the purchase of over 200,000 laptops. Competition to supply this contract was fierce and the major PC companies of the time; IBM,
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...
,
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
,
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
, and
Zenith Data Systems Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) was a division of Zenith Electronics founded in 1979 after Zenith acquired the Heath Company, which had entered the personal computer market in 1977. Headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Zenith sold personal compu ...
(ZDS), rushed to develop laptops in an attempt to win this deal. ZDS, which had earlier won a landmark deal with the IRS for its Z-171, was awarded this contract for its SupersPort series. The SupersPort series was originally launched with an Intel 8086 processor, dual floppy disk drives, a
backlit A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs). As LCDs do not produce light by themselves—unlike, for example, cathode ray tube (CRT), plasma (PDP) or OLED displays—they need illumination ( ambient light or a ...
, blue-and-white STN LCD screen, and a NiCd battery pack. Later models featured a 16-bit
Intel 80286 The Intel 80286 (also marketed as the iAPX 286 and often called Intel 286) is a 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced on February 1, 1982. It was the first 8086-based CPU with separate, non- multiplexed address and data buses and also the ...
processor and a 20 MB
hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...
. On the strength of this deal, ZDS became the world's largest laptop supplier in 1987 and 1988. ZDS partnered with Tottori Sanyo in the design and manufacturing of these laptops. This relationship is notable because it was the first deal between a major brand and an Asian
original equipment manufacturer An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
.


Hewlett-Packard Vectra Portable CS

In 1987, HP released a portable version of their 16-bit Vectra CS computer. It had the classic laptop configuration (keyboard and monitor closes up clam-shell style in order to carry), however, it was very heavy and fairly large. It had a full-size keyboard (with separate numeric keypad) and a large amber LCD screen. While it was offered with dual 3.5-inch floppy disk drives, the most common configuration was a 20 MB hard drive and a single floppy drive. It was one of the first machines with a 1.44 MB density 3.5-inch disk drive.


Cambridge Z88

Another notable computer was the 8-bit
Cambridge Z88 The Cambridge Computer Z88 is a Zilog Z80-based portable computer released in 1987 by Cambridge Computer, the company formed for such purpose by Clive Sinclair. It was approximately A4 paper sized and lightweight at , running on four AA batter ...
, designed by Clive Sinclair, introduced in 1988. About the size of an A4 sheet of paper as well, it ran on standard batteries, and contained basic
spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...
,
word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...
, and communications programs. It anticipated the future miniaturization of the portable computer, and as a ROM-based machine with a small display, can – like the ''TRS-80 Model 100'' – also be seen as a forerunner of the
personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in part ...
.


Compaq SLT/286

By the end of the 1980s, laptop computers were becoming popular among business people. The 16-bit COMPAQ SLT/286 debuted in October 1988, being the first battery-powered laptop to support an internal hard disk drive and a
VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...
compatible LCD screen. It weighed .


NEC UltraLite

The NEC UltraLite, released in October 1988, was perhaps the first "notebook" computer, weighing just , which was achieved by obviating floppy or hard drive, it was powered by the
NEC V30 The NEC V20 is a microprocessor that was designed and produced by NEC. It is both pin compatible and object code compatible with the Intel 8088, with an instruction set architecture (ISA) similar to that of the Intel 80188 with some extensio ...
16-bit CPU. The very restrictive 2 megabyte
RAM drive Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
cramped the product's utility. Although portable computers with clamshell LCD screens already existed at the time of its release, the Ultralite was the first computer in a notebook form-factor. It was significantly smaller than all earlier portable computers and could be carried like a notebook and its clamshell LCD folded over the body like a book cover.


Apple and IBM


Apple Macintosh Portable

Apple's first laptop product was the 16-bit lead-acid battery powered
Macintosh Portable Macintosh Portable is a laptop designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from September 1989 to October 1991. It is the first battery-powered Macintosh, which garnered significant excitement from critics, but sales to customers w ...
released in September 1989. The Portable pioneered inclusion of a pointing device (a
trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the o ...
) in the laptop/portable sphere.


IBM PS/2 note

The
IBM PS/2 note The IBM PS/2 Note and PS/note are a series of notebooks from the PS/2 line by IBM. It was announced in March 1992, half a year prior to the release of the first ThinkPad, the IBM ThinkPad 700. The series was discontinued in 1994. Background A ...
was a first IBM laptop with clamshell design, and the 1992's CL57sx model was IBM's first commercial laptop with color screen; the introduced options and features include the now-common peripherals-oriented
PS/2 port The PS/2 port is a 6-pin mini-DIN connector used for connecting keyboards and mice to a PC compatible computer system. Its name comes from the IBM Personal System/2 series of personal computers, with which it was introduced in 1987. The PS/2 m ...
as mobile device option, introduced the laptop BIOS and predecessor of laptop
docking station In computing, a docking station or port replicator (hub) or dock provides a simplified way to ''plug-in'' a mobile device, such as a laptop, to common peripherals. Because a wide range of dockable devices—from mobile phones to wireless mou ...
(IBM Communications Cartridge).


Apple Powerbook

The Apple PowerBook series, introduced in October 1991, pioneered changes that are now ''de facto'' standards on laptops, including room for a palm rest. Later PowerBooks featured optional color displays ( PowerBook 165c, 1993), and first true
touchpad A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...
(
PowerBook 500 The PowerBook 500 series (codenamed ''Blackbird'', which it shared with the older Macintosh IIfx) is a range of Apple Macintosh PowerBook portable computers first introduced by Apple Computer with the 540c model on May 16, 1994. It was the firs ...
series, 1994), first 16-bit stereo audio, and first built-in
Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...
network adapter A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter or physical network interface, and by similar terms) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Ear ...
(PowerBook 500, 1994).


IBM ThinkPad

In 1992, IBM released its
ThinkPad ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design la ...
300, 700 and 700C, featuring a clamshell design similar to the PS/2 line. The 700 and 700C (the "C" version came with a color display) came with the distinctive red
TrackPoint A pointing stick (or trackpoint, also referred to generically as a nub or nipple) is a small analog stick used as a pointing device typically mounted centrally in a computer keyboard. Like other pointing devices such as mice, touchpads or trac ...
pointing device that is still used to this day. The ThinkPad raised a new standard for business class laptops with its modular design, greater durability and more productivity options, including video capture and cameras (ThinkPad Power Series 850, 1995), removable drive bays, secondary batteries, and backlit keyboards.


APM and SMI/SMM

Windows 3.1 was the first version of Windows to support APM, which was usually implemented with SMI in the BIOS (introduced with the Intel 80386SL). Windows 95 introduced standardized support for docking via the PnP BIOS (among other things). Prior to this point each brand used custom BIOS, drivers and in some cases, ASICs, to optimize the battery life of its machines. This move by Microsoft was controversial in the eyes of notebook designers because it greatly reduced their ability to innovate; however, it did serve its role in simplifying and stabilizing certain aspects of notebook design.


Intel Pentium processor

Windows 95 ushered in the importance of the CD-ROM drive in mobile computing, and helped the shift to the
Intel Pentium Pentium is a brand used for a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel. The original Pentium processor from which the brand took its name was first released on March 22, 1993. After that, the Pentium II and P ...
processor as the base platform for notebooks. The Gateway Solo was the first notebook introduced with a Pentium processor and a CD-ROM. Also featuring a removable hard disk drive and floppy drive, the Solo was the first three-spindle (optical, floppy, and hard disk drive) notebook computer, and was extremely successful within the consumer segment of the market. In roughly the same time period the
Dell Latitude The Dell Latitude series is a line of laptop computers manufactured and sold by American company Dell. It is a business-oriented line, aimed at corporate enterprises, healthcare, government, and education markets; unlike the Inspiron series, ...
,
Toshiba Satellite The Satellite was a line of laptops manufactured by Toshiba's computer subsidiary now known as Dynabook Inc. Models in the Satellite family varied greatly—from entry-level models sold to consumers at major retailers to full-fledged business la ...
, and
IBM ThinkPad ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design lan ...
were reaching great success with Pentium-based two-spindle (hard disk and floppy disk drive) systems directed toward the corporate market.


Improved technology

Early laptop displays were so primitive that '' PC Magazine'' in 1986 published an article discussing them with the headline "Is It On Yet?". It said of the accompanying montage of nine portable computers, "Pictured at the right are two screens and seven elongated smudges". The article stated that "LCD screens still look to many observers like
Etch-a-Sketch Etch A Sketch is a mechanical drawing toy invented by André Cassagnes of France and subsequently manufactured by the Ohio Art Company. It is now owned by Spin Master of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. An Etch A Sketch has a thick, flat gray screen in ...
toys, or gray chalk on a dirty blackboard", and predicted that until displays improved, "laptops will continue to be a niche rather than a mainstream direction". As technology improved during the 1990s, the usefulness and popularity of laptops increased. Correspondingly prices went down. Several developments specific to laptops were quickly implemented, improving usability and performance. Among them were: * Improved battery technology. The heavy lead-acid batteries were replaced with lighter and more efficient technologies, first
nickel cadmium Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...
or NiCd, then
nickel metal hydride Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to r ...
(NiMH) and then
Lithium-ion battery A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also s ...
and
lithium polymer A lithium polymer battery, or more correctly lithium-ion polymer battery (abbreviated as LiPo, LIP, Li-poly, lithium-poly and others), is a rechargeable battery of lithium-ion technology using a polymer electrolyte instead of a liquid electrol ...
. * Power-saving processors. While laptops in 1989 were limited to the
80286 The Intel 80286 (also marketed as the iAPX 286 and often called Intel 286) is a 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced on February 1, 1982. It was the first 8086-based CPU with separate, non- multiplexed address and data buses and also the ...
processor (often Harris CMOS) because of the energy demands of the more powerful 80386 on the original CHMOS III process, the introduction of the Intel 386SL processor, designed for the specific power needs of laptops, marked the point at which laptop needs were included in CPU design. The 386SL integrated a
386SX The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistorschipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components in one or more integrated circuits known as a "Data Flow Management System" that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. It is usually found on the mo ...
. It was more integrated than any previous solution although its cost was higher. It was heavily adopted by the major notebook brands of the time. Intel followed this with the 486SL chipset which used the same architecture. However, Intel had to abandon this design approach as it introduced its Pentium series. Early versions of the mobile Pentium required TAB mounting (also used in LCD manufacturing) and this initially limited the number of companies capable of supplying notebooks. However, Intel did eventually migrate to more standard chip packaging. One limitation of notebooks has always been the difficulty in upgrading the processor which is a common attribute of desktops. Intel did try to solve this problem with the introduction of the MMC for mobile computing. The MMC was a standard module upon which the CPU and external cache memory could sit. It gave the notebook buyer the potential to upgrade their CPU at a later date, eased the manufacturing process somewhat, and was also used in some cases to skirt U.S. import duties as the CPU could be added to the chassis after it arrived in the U.S. Intel stuck with MMC for a few generations but ultimately could not maintain the appropriate speed and data integrity to the memory subsystem through the MMC connector. A more specialized power saving CPU variant for laptops is the
PowerPC 603 The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...
family. Derived from IBM's 601 series for laptops (while the 604 branch was for desktops), it found itself used on many low end Apple desktops before it was widely used in laptops, starting with PowerBook models 5300, 2400, 500 upgrades. What started out as a laptop processor was eventually used across all platforms in its follow up, the PowerPC 750 AKA G3. * Improved Liquid-crystal displays, in particular
active-matrix Active matrix is a type of addressing scheme used in flat panel displays. In this method of switching individual elements (pixels), each pixel is attached to a transistor and capacitor ''actively'' maintaining the pixel state while other pixels are ...
TFT (
Thin-film transistor A thin-film transistor (TFT) is a special type of field-effect transistor (FET) where the transistor is thin relative to the plane of the device. TFTs are grown on a supporting (but non-conducting) substrate. A common substrate is glass, becaus ...
) LCD technology. Early laptop screens were black and white, blue and white, or grayscale, STN (Super Twist Nematic) passive-matrix LCDs prone to heavy shadows, ghosting and blurry movement (some portable computer screens were sharper monochrome
plasma display A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be releas ...
s, but these drew too much current to be powered by batteries). Color STN screens were used for some time although their viewing quality was poor. By about 1991, two new color LCD technologies hit the mainstream market in a big way; Dual STN and TFT. The Dual STN screens solved many of the viewing problems of STN at a very affordable price and the TFT screens offered excellent viewing quality although initially at a steep price. DSTN continued to offer a significant cost advantage over TFT until the mid-90s before the cost delta dropped to the point that DSTN was no longer used in notebooks. Improvements in production technology meant displays became larger, sharper, had higher
native resolution The native resolution of an LCD, LCoS or other flat panel display refers to its single fixed resolution. As an LCD consists of a fixed raster, it cannot change resolution to match the signal being displayed, while black and white CRT monit ...
s, faster
response time Response time may refer to: *The time lag between an electronic input and the output signal which depends upon the value of passive components used. * Responsiveness, how quickly an interactive system responds to user input * Response time (biolog ...
and could display color with great accuracy, making them an acceptable substitute for a traditional CRT monitor. * Improved storage technology. Early laptops and portables had only
floppy disk drive A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...
s. As thin, high-capacity
hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...
s with higher reliability and shock resistance and lower power consumption became available, users could store their work on laptop computers and take it with them. The 3.5" HDD was created initially as a response to the needs of notebook designers that needed smaller, lower power consumption products. With continuing pressure to shrink the notebook size even further, the 2.5" HDD was introduced. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and other new laptops use
Flash RAM Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...
(non volatile, non mechanical memory device) instead of the mechanical hard disk. * Improved connectivity. Internal
modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
s and standard serial,
parallel Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Computing * Parallel algorithm * Parallel computing * Parallel metaheuristic * Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel * Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of ...
, and PS/2 ports on IBM PC-compatible laptops made it easier to work away from home; the addition of
network adapter A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter or physical network interface, and by similar terms) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Ear ...
s and, from 1997,
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...
, as well as, from 1999,
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...
, made laptops as easy to use with peripherals as a desktop computer. Many newer laptops are also available with built-in 3G Broadband wireless modems. * Other peripherals may include: ** an integrated
video camera A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of oth ...
for video communication ** a
fingerprint sensor A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfa ...
for implementing a restriction of access to a sensitive data or the computer itself.


Netbooks

In June 2007, Asus announced the
Eee PC The ASUS Eee PC is a netbook computer line from Asus, and a part of the ASUS Eee product family. At the time of its introduction in late 2007, it was noted for its combination of a lightweight, Linux-based operating system, solid-state drive (S ...
701 to be released in October, a small lightweight
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...
Celeron-M ULV 353 powered laptop with 4 GB
SDHC Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanD ...
disk and a 7-inch screen. Despite previous attempts to launch small lightweight computers such as ultra-portable PC, the Eee was the first success story largely due to its low cost, small size, low weight and versatility. The term 'Netbook' was later dubbed by Intel. Asus then extended the Eee line with models with features such as a 9-inch screen and other brands, including Acer, MSI and Dell followed suit with similar devices, often built on the fledgling low-power
Intel Atom Intel Atom is the brand name for a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Co ...
processor architecture.


Smartbooks

In 2009, Qualcomm introduced a new term "smartbook", which stands for a hybrid device between smartphone and laptop.


See also

*
History of mobile phones The history of mobile phones covers mobile communication devices that connect wirelessly to the public switched telephone network. While the transmission of speech by signal has a long history, the first devices that were wireless, mobile, and ...
*
History of personal computers The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where ...
*
History of software Software is a set of programmed instructions stored in the memory of stored-program digital computers for execution by the processor. Software is a recent development in human history, and it is fundamental to the Information Age. Ada Lovelace ...
*
List of pioneers in computer science This is a list of people who made transformative breakthroughs in the creation, development and imagining of what computers could do. Pioneers : ''To arrange the list by date or person (ascending or descending), click that column's small "up-do ...
*
Timeline of portable computers A portable computer is a computer designed to be easily moved from one place to another and included a display and keyboard together, with a single plug, much like later desktop computers called '' all-in-ones'' (AIO), that integrate the s ...
* Portal laptop computer


References


External links

*


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Laptops History of computing hardware Laptops History of Silicon Valley