The idea for the laptop came in the late 1960s with the Dynabook, but this Tablet PC was primarily for children.
There was no real commercial incentive to develop a truly portable computer (and it was thought to be impractical in any case), so it wasn’t until much later, with new developments in transistors and processors, that the laptop was considered as more than just a children’s toy.
It was in the early 1980s that the first truly portable computer was developed, the Osborne 1 had no batteries (you had to plug it in), but at least you could carry the data and the computer around.
A couple of years later, in 1982, Compaq computers were released.
It’s widely accepted that Compaq wasn’t much better than the Osborn 1, but because it used the popular new MS-DOS operating system (used on most IBM computers at the time), it proved an instant success.
A year later, Epson announced the first truly portable computer with a nickel battery. The Epson was more like an advanced calculator with only 80 characters displayed at a time.
The Compass 1101 also introduced around the same time is credited with the now-familiar laptop design with the screen folded closed over the keyboard.
In 1984, the Gavilan SC and the Sharp PC-500 entered the market, with Gavilan being the first to introduce the concept of a laptop (and a basic pointing device).
1984 also saw the arrival of the Kyocera Kyotronic 85, it was small and offered many applications such as a word processor, modem or spreadsheet and was very popular.
By the late 1980s, many laptop manufacturers had developed quite similar machines. Everything from the size of an A4 to an A3 page. Most notably, the NEC Ultralite, the Cambridge Z88, and the IBM PC Convertible. Compaq LTE introduced the concept of a portable hard drive (until that time, the operating system was stored in ROM and floppy drives were used).
In the early 1990s, the look of the laptop was defined by Apple computers (integrated trackball, keyboard, and palm rest). Not to be outdone, the IBM Thinkpad 700C introduced TrackPoint a year later.
Since the mid 90’s only technology has improved laptop computers. Longer-lasting batteries and huge hard drives now make the laptop a serious challenge for the desktop.
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