World’s first laptop, 25 years old and still running(thenextweb.com)

46 pointsby ttunguz16 anni fa31 comments

World’s first laptop, 25 years old and still running

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/10/26/worlds-first-laptop-25-years-old-and-running/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheNextWeb+(The+Next+Web+All+Stories)&utm_content=Google+Reader

31 comments

sp4rki16 anni fa

No windows button and a properly placed control key where it should be? The caps lock is relegated to arrows territory? I'M FREAKING SOLD! Where do I get one? xD

rbanffy16 anni fa

Someone should sell keycaps for the windows key with "super" written on them.

lepton16 anni fa

The keys 'Z' and 'Y' are transposed as well.

GFischer16 anni fa

That's the default German setup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#QWERTZ

binarymax16 anni fa

What, you mean use don't use QWERTZ? You must be a Dvoraq user then...

elliottcarlson16 anni fa

I still have my Epson HX-20 which predates this by 4 years and is wildly considered to be the first "laptop" computer...

Specs: Dual 8bit Hitachi 6301 at 0.6 MHz, 16 kB RAM, 32 kB CMOS ROM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epson_HX-20

FiddlerClamp16 anni fa

I had the first full-keyboard portable, the TRS-80 Model 100 which Dad was still using into the 90s. I also had the very first ultralight laptop - the NEC Ultralite (4lbs, no hard drive, solid-state!) back in '88.

Good times, but you spend a LOT to stay on the bleeding edge. :)

petercooper16 anni fa

and just like the Macbook Air of today it didn’t have a regular Hard Drive

Just stretching a simile to breaking point there..

justinweiss16 anni fa

I've still got one of these in a closet somewhere. I suppose it could be called a laptop, depending on the size of your lap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Portable

(edit: on second thought, it most likely requires at least two laps.)

RyanMcGreal16 anni fa

Me too. I haven't fired it up in at least a year, but last time I tried it booted up with no problem other than some alarming smoke coming from the air vent. Seeing that customized autoexec.bat float up in ghostly green letters really brought me back.

aidenn016 anni fa

My dad had a Toshiba T1200, the successor to this one. He still uses it as a serial terminal. On another note, due to its limited built-in storage, he ran command.com through pklite!

megablast16 anni fa

I remember doing that to loads of com files. That was with a 20mb hdd. You knew every file on the HDD in those days.

rhizome16 anni fa

1985? The Model 100 came out in 1983. Mine still works great.

meelash16 anni fa

Maybe it doesn't count because it doesn't fold closed? :p

That's the one that runs for a day or something on just AA batteries, isn't it?

oofoe16 anni fa

I usually get a month of out of 4 AA's. It's very power efficient...

tajddin16 anni fa

It really amazes me how far we've come in the last 25 years and how much has remained the same. Here's to the next 25 and making fun of today's technology :)

adrianwaj16 anni fa

1991: Toshiba adds the first colour screens to laptops. From here on, portable PCs become more than work-obsessed business tools, and begin to pull double duty as entertainment machines.

http://toshibalife.com/featured-articles/25-years-laptop-inn...

Yaggo16 anni fa

" -- and weighed in at a whopping 4.1 Kilograms."

Not bad at all, considering the typical ~3 kg weight of many modern laptops.

alexyoung16 anni fa

The first laptop I used in real life was an Acorn A4 in around 1993. When things moved the screen blurred so much it was hard to use, but it did run RISC OS which I liked back then.

Luc16 anni fa

Everybody knows the GRiD Compass was the first laptop! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass

rbanffy16 anni fa

Sadly, no.

And that was a claim that didn't resist 15 seconds of googling.

There were a couple portables that could be called laptops before the Toshibas. The TRS-80 model 100, its NEC cousin. Even if we are talking of MS-DOS, PC-compatible computers, the Data General One predates this one by quite a bit.

joezydeco16 anni fa

And the Osborne 1 predates the DG-1 by 3 years, although it was a CP/M machine (remember THAT?)

rbanffy16 anni fa

Of course I remember them. However, an Osborne one is a laptop if you can use it on your lap.

The Epson HX-20 laptop also ran CP/M (as an option, AFAIK).

tocomment16 anni fa

Somewhat related. I have a 12 year old laptop with a broken CDROM. Is there a way to load a lightweight linux using floppy disks or some other method?

almost16 anni fa

If it has a USB port you can use either an external CDROM drive or a USB key drive.

If it has a network port then you can make a network boot floppy quite easily. This just contains enough to get the system booting off of an image retrieved from a TFTP server over the network.

tocomment16 anni fa

So no network port.

I can't figure out a way to tell it to boot from a USB thumb drive. It doesn't list that option in the BIOS.

Would it still let me boot from an external CD ROM even though the BIOS doesn't mention USB? Maybe I could buy one.

Otherwise, any other thoughts?

almost16 anni fa

Maybe, it's probably more likely it can boot from a USB CD-ROM than from a USD key. But I have no idea how much more likely.

Otherwise, you could maybe try a PCMCIA network card, assuming the laptop supports that.

lokijuhyhui16 anni fa

my first PC going to college in 1988, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPC_512 4.7Mhz, 512kb RAM and a floppy drive, it could run a fortran compiler (rather slowly)

Although if you had access to a TV and a power socket at the destination my Sinclair QL was probably a more capable and lighter 'portable'

wil2k16 anni fa

Still got one. :)

It has an awesome design and it can also be seen in some movies (names don't come to mind though, but I've seen them), e.g. painted in some fancy color. :)

mironathetin16 anni fa

Very nice to see that machine again. I used one of these to write my first application.

tfh16 anni fa

The price was $1899. That's $3818 adjusted to inflation.