The Laptop Celebrates Its 40th Year 88
Wired has an interview with Alan Kay on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the idea of the laptop computer. Kay's vision, which he dubbed the "Dynabook," was for a 2-pound, 1-Mpixel color computing device. "... the Dynabook was never built. But it greatly inspired the devices we now call laptops, although it's taken four decades to slim the tech down to the point where usable computers actually weigh as little as two pounds. To honor his achievements, Mountain View's Computer History Museum on Wednesday will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the legendary Dynabook. [Quoting Kay:] 'The Amazon Kindle is kind of a subset of a Dynabook — too much of a subset. The screen is too small, it is not very capable of dynamics, the keyboard is poor, etc. But it does have several limited service ideas that are good. The next version of a Kindle could be really exciting.'"
Agreed. Ideas are not products. (Score:4, Informative)
The screen was a 5" square, monochrome CRT. The very idea of battery power was nothing but a joke. Clock speed for the newer machines was 7+ MHz. Hard drives (10MB!!) were offered as an option starting around 1990 or so, and added even more to the heft (and the price!). Alternatively you could have one or two 5.25" floppy drives.
The reality is not as pretty a picture, is it?
Re:Utter, utter, utter (Score:3, Informative)
Damn! Now I have to look up wikipedia....
Jetsons (I was wrong with 1968), ran from September 23, 1962 to March 3, 1963.
Looks like The Jetsons beat Star Trek by 4 years:
The Original Series... debuted in the United States on NBC on September 8, 1966.
So unless Flash Gordon, Jet Jackson, Rocket Man or Superman had laptops then the Jetsons win hands down.
The First Laptop computer (Score:2, Informative)
The First Laptop computer was the GRiD Compass ( 1982), Mt. View, CA.