Choosing a Laptop Just for You?
In this part . . .
Laptops aren’t only for people who have laps; they’re
for everyone! That’s because the laptop is the ideal
portable computer, not only for use as your main computer
but as a computer system that you can take with
you whenever and wherever you go. It’s the answer to
that ancient riddle, “Where does your lap go when you
stand up?” For the laptop at least, when you stand up, the
laptop goes with you.
This part of the book introduces you to the laptop or
portable computing concept. It includes a strategy for
buying laptop computer, plus excuses for getting one —
just in case you need to convince someone near or dear to
you that your portable computing desires haven’t been
plucked from thin Ethernet!
Chapter 1
Sometimes You Can
Take It with You
From the time when the first computer was powered on in the early 1940s,
users have craved mobility. I’m certain of it. Sitting in the lunch room,
some guy with a crew cut, thick glasses, and a white lab coat popped up and
said, “How ’bout we put wheels on the ENIAC? Then we could roll it out into
the quad and work outside on a sunny day? Hey?” And so the dream was
born.
This chapter provides an overview of the laptop computer concept. If you’re
uncertain as to what a laptop is, or how it can help you, then this is where
you start reading.
The Power Cord Can Stretch Only So Far
Any computer can be mobile. The solution is simple: Just add a handle. I
remember my first portable TV. It may have weighed over 40 pounds, but
dangit, the thing had a handle, and therefore it was portable. Seeing that
portability is often desired in a product, manufacturers were quick to add
handles to everything, blessing products such as blenders, table saws,
microwave ovens, and grand pianos with the gift of portability.
For computers, the desire to make it portable is a primeval one. It was a
quest for the Holy Grail, but without a Holy Grail. That’s because the true
notion of what a portable computer is, and what it could offer, changed
subtly over time.
The Osborne 1
The first successful portable computer was the Osborne 1, created by Adam
Osborne in 1980. A computer book author and publisher, Adam believed that
for personal computers to be successful, they would have to be portable.
Adam’s design for the Osborne 1 portable computer was ambitious for the
time: The thing would have to fit under an airline seat — and this was years
before anyone would dream of actually using a computer on an airplane.
The Osborne 1 portable computer (see Figure 1-1) was a whopping success. It
featured a full-sized keyboard, two full-sized floppy drives, but a teensy credit
card-sized monitor. It wasn’t battery powered, but it did have a handy carrying
handle so you could lug the 24-pound beast around like an over-packed
suitcase. Despite any shortcomings, they were selling 10,000 units a month
(at $1,795 each, which included software — a first for the time). The cash was
rolling in.
Figure 1-1: A latemodel Osborne.
By late 1983, sadly, Adam’s company floundered, suffering from the onslaught
of the new IBM PC and its legion of compatibles and clones. Yet the Osborne
1 proved that computers could be portable. In fact, it founded a new class of
computer: the luggable.
The ancient portable computer
Long before people marveled over solar powered,
credit card-sized calculators, there existed
the world’s first portable, human-powered calculator.
Presenting the abacus, the device used
for centuries by merchants and goat herders to
rapidly perform calculations that would break
human fingers.
Abacus comes from the Greek word meaning
“to swindle you faster.” Seriously, the abacus or
counting board is simple to master, and in the
deft hands of an expert, it can even out perform
all operations on a calculator — including the
square and cubic roots. In his short story “Into
the Comet,” science fiction author Arthur C.
Clarke wrote of stranded astronauts using many
abacuses to plot their voyage home when the
spaceship’s computer broke down.
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