The luggables
The Osborne was portable, but not conveniently so. Heck, it was a suitcase!
Imagine hauling the 24-pound Osborne across Chicago’s O’Hare airport?
Worse: Imagine the joy of your fellow seatmates as you try to wedge the thing
beneath the seat in front you.
Despite the inconvenience, the computer world recognized the value of portability.
And despite the print ads showing carefree people toting the Osborne
around — people with arms of equal length, no less — no hip marketing term
could mask the ungainly nature of the Osborne: Portable? Transportable?
Wispy? Like it or not, the computer industry itself devised the unglamorous
term luggable to describe that type of computer.
Portability and communications
Long before the Internet came around, one item
that was deemed standard on all portable computers
was the ability to communicate. The
laptop computer not only had to be able to talk
with the desktop computer, to exchange and
update files, but it also had to use a modem to
communicate electronically over phone lines.
Nearly every portable PC from the Radio Shack
Model 100 onward had to have a modem, or at
least an option for installing one. This was in an
era when modems were considered optional
luxuries for a desktop computer. Portable computers
required a modem to keep in touch with
the desktop systems of the day while they were
on the road. Special software was required, but
once the connection was made, it was possible
to keep files on the laptop updated even from
the most remote of locations.
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The luggables were an extremely popular class of computer. Never mind the
weight. Never mind that most never ventured from the desktop that they
were set up on, luggables were the best the computer industry could offer
in the arena of portable computing.
The problem with the Osborne was not that it was a luggable. No, what killed
the Osborne was that the world wanted IBM PC compatibility. The Osborne
lacked that. Instead, an upstart Texas company called Compaq introduced
luggability to the IBM world with the Compaq 1, shown in Figure 1-2.
Figure 1-2:The luggable Compaq 1.
The Compaq 1, introduced in 1983 at $3,590, proved that you could have your
IBM compatibility and eat it on the road — or anywhere there was a power
socket handy.
But yet, the power cord can stretch only so far. It became painfully obvious
that for a computer to be truly portable — as Adam Osborne intended — it
was going to have to lose that power cord.
The Model 100
The very first computer that even remotely looks like a modern laptop, and
was fully battery powered, was the Radio Shack Model 100, shown in Figure
1-3. It was an instant, insane success.
The Model 100 was not designed to be IBM PC compatible, which is surprising
considering that PC compatibility was all the rage at the time. Instead, it
offered users a full-sized, full-action keyboard, plus a tiny 8-row, 40-column
display. It came with several built-in programs, including a text editor/word
processor, communications, a scheduler/appointment book, plus the BASIC
programming language, which allowed users to create their own programs or
buy and use BASIC programs written by others.
Figure 1-3:Radio Shack’s Model 100.
The Radio Shack Model 100 was really all that was needed for portability at
the time, which is why the device was a such a resounding success.
- The Model 100 provided the form factor for laptops of the future. It was
about the size of a hardback novel. It ran for hours off of standard AA
batteries. It weighed just 6 pounds.
- Despite its popularity and versatility, people wanted a version of the
Model 100 that would run the same software as the IBM PC. Technology
wasn’t ready to shrink the PC’s hardware down to Model 100 size, but the
Model 100 set the goal for what users wanted in a laptop’s dimensions.
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