Lead image: The IBM ThinkPad 700 series appeared in 1992 If you have a PC, chances are it's a lightweight, portable laptop, rather than a big, bulky desktop. The popularity of these rectangular boxes attached to your desk has waned, with laptops now surpassing them in terms of sales. Thanks to a near-constant stream of innovations, the modest notebook has become thinner and lighter than ever, while the stuff inside is ever more powerful, while the batteries last longer. . Creating a powerful and portable computer is not an easy task, it is here that we look at some of the key moments in the history of laptop development and how early machines have influenced today's laptops. 'hui.
1981: Osborne 1, the world's first truly mobile computer
(Image: © CC BY 3.0) Many people consider the Osborne 1 the granddaddy of laptops. Released by Osborne Computer in 1981, the Osborne 1 was equipped with a five-inch screen, two floppy disk drives, a modem, a battery, and a keyboard built into the lid. Although big and bulky (it weighed 11kg, a little more than the combined weight of five MacBook Pros), this old computer still has some recognizable laptop features. Unfortunately, it wasn't a success, but it showed the potential of a portable personal computer: for the first time, people could take their computer and work on it while traveling. At press time, it was priced at US$1,795, which would equate to roughly US$5,000 (€4,000, AU7,000) in today's money.
1983: Grid Compass 1101, the first laptop with clamshell
Image credit: Russian Vintage Laptop Museum. (Image: © Russian Vintage Laptop Museum) The first laptop that really looks like a laptop is the Grid Compass 1101, released in 1983. It has a clamshell design, the screen can be folded against the keyboard when closed. This remarkable innovation made the Grid Compass 1101 easier to transport while protecting the screen and keyboard. It is a model that is so successful and influential that it has suffered today, and although the Grid Compass 1101 is not itself a huge success due to its high price of around 10,000. € (about €25,000 / €20,000 today), patents and many innovations have allowed GRID Systems Corp to earn a lot of money.
1989: Compaq LTE and Compaq LTE 286, the first notebook computers
Image Credit: Origin Center for the History of Computing. (Image: © IT History Center) Until then, early laptops were sometimes referred to as "suitcases" because they were more portable than a regular PC, but still bulky and bulky and difficult to carry around. However, in 1989, the Compaq LTE and LTE 286 were released, and are generally considered the first laptops, as they were the size of a laptop. These small laptops were easier to transport, making them more popular with people who traveled a lot. They're also two of the first laptops to include an integrated hard drive and floppy drive, making them even more versatile. The Compaq LTE hard drive offers 20MB of storage space, double the Compaq LTE 286.
1989: Macintosh Laptop, Apple's first laptop.
Image credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 FR. (Image: © CC BY-SA 2.0 ES) In 1989, Apple also released its first laptop, and while it wasn't as small and as portable as the Compaq LTE (it was still considered a "carry on" device), it offered a very good autonomy. Battery and a decent screen - something. The modern MacBook is still famous. Due to its size and weight, it wasn't a popular device, but it encouraged its competitors to offer more Mac-compatible laptops. Today, it's strange to think of a company other than Apple building Mac hardware.
1991: Apple PowerBook 100 Series - a groundbreaking first laptop
Image credit: CC BY-SA 3.0. (Image: © CC BY-SA 3.0) In 1991, Apple released a series of PowerBook laptops - the PowerBook 100, PowerBook 140, and PowerBook 170 - which were far more successful than the company's previous attempts at creating a laptop, e they introduced a number of revolutionary features that have become staples. From the modern design of the notebook. For example, the keyboard was placed at the back of the bottom half of the laptop, providing space to the front for the palm rest and a trackball. Until then, most laptops had the keyboard positioned at the front and space at the back for function key reference cards and instructions. The included trackpad was also notable, providing a convenient way to control a pointing device. With operating systems moving away from text-based command line interfaces to graphical user interfaces, these pointing devices would become essential. The Apple PowerBook series has been immensely popular, and over the years the PowerBook line has brought more innovative features that we now take for granted in laptops. In 1994, the PowerBook 500 series was the first notebook to include a true touchpad and the first to include a built-in Ethernet network adapter.
1992: IBM ThinkPad 700 - a powerful and iconic laptop
In 1992, IBM released its first ThinkPad laptops, the 700, 700c, and 700t, and these, along with the Apple PowerBook 100 series, can be considered the first modern laptops, helping to shape the laptop landscape for the next 25 years. . The ThinkPad comes with a red TrackPoint in the center of the keyboard, which has been used to control the pointer, and the iconic feature is still present on modern ThinkPads. The ThinkPad 700 also showed what a laptop could be capable of. It had a 10,4-inch color screen, larger than any other laptop screen, a 120MB hard drive, and a powerful IBM 486 SLC processor. The ThinkPad's design was elegant and functional and won many design awards. IBM wanted to emphasize how well the ThinkPad was built at a series of promotional events, including laptops used by Egyptian archaeologists. NASA took the ThinkPad 750c into space, proving just how capable these modern laptops are. With innovative features and design choices used to overcome the technological problems of the day, these early laptops paved the way for the modern machines we now use on a daily basis. We have these early pioneers to thank for making these computers the extremely versatile devices we use. Our homes, schools and workplaces. TechRadar's Next Up series is brought to you in association with Honor
