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Does anyone know when the 1st laptop hit the us market?
I own a Zenith laptop and was wandering it's age?
Thank You
by jamesrl
It wasn't mine, but in 1985 I used a Compaq portable, 8086 processor, tiny green screen with a nearly full size keybord that made a lid.
It was the size and weight of a small sewing machine.
James
James, you're referring to the "suitcase" model, right? We had one here at work as late as 1994. It didn't work any more; we kept it strictly for laughs. Dual 5.25 floppies! 9-inch display!
http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Compaq.htm says Compaq introduced this model in '83 for $3590. Unfortunately I couldn't find a site with a photo.
UPDATED - I found a photo at http://oldcomputers.net/compaqi.html. To get a true perspective of the size of this monster, scroll down to the picture of the guy holding one in an airplane doorway.
What model of Zenith? I'm betting it is a Z-note, a white machine with a decidely rectangular shape, monochrome screen, and marked as either 425 or 433 above the keyboard (486/25 or 486/33). 3.5 floppy, 10Gb drive.
I may still have one of those suckers rattling around the shop somewhere. I used to pull it out when someone had been complaining too much about their current system. It had a great Logitech trackball that clipped to the frame around the keyboard.
by lesir
Hi it's a zenith Super-Sport 286e model and still works!
Any value to this relic!?
by dc guy
Whether you'd call this precisely a laptop depends on the resiliency of your lap, but this was the first PORTABLE computer and it did fit under an airline seat. The article unfortunately does not give the weight. Imagine, this company had gross monthly sales of almost $20 million but it went out of business!
1981: OSBORNE PORTABLE COMPUTER
The Osborne Computer was the brainchild of Adam Osborne, a well-known publisher of technical books in the early days of the personal computer. He wanted a computer with a built-in screen that could fit under an airplane seat, and the Osborne just met those criteria in 1981, albeit via a rather small 5-inch CRT.
The screen displayed 52 characters, but could be shifted left/right to display longer lines of text. The Osborne was introduced at the West Coast Computer Faire in April 1981. It was also notable for being the first machine to come bundled with a suite of software that included BASIC, WordStar, and SuperCalc. The unit retailed for $1795 and had brisk sales of about 10,000 machines a month.
Other companies, most notably Compaq, jumped into the portable computer business, prompting Osborne to release the Osborne Executive model in 1983 (at which time the original was named Osborne 1). This unit had a 7-inch CRT and the same Z80 processor as the original, but an optional 8088 CPU card allowed it to run the MS-DOS operating system.
But Osborne Computer Corp. was unable to manage itself effectively in its rapidly changing market from 1981 to 1983, and OCC declared bankruptcy on September 13, 1983.
For PHOTO see the original article:
by jdclyde
but I know that compac had the lugable out long before that.
Matter of fact, my stepdad still has a working lugable in his attic!
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