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Portables (Apple) Businesses Hardware Apple

How the PowerBook was Born 277

Posted by CowboyNeal from the birth-of-an-era dept.
Sabah Arif writes "Apple had no presence in the portables market prior to 1992. Its attempt at creating a laptop Macintosh, the Macintosh Portable, weighed almost 15 lbs and failed to sell. On the personal behest of John Sculley, Apple contracted with Sony to create Asahi, a smaller Portable. Apple developed two high end models in company. After 1992 and until the disastrous 5300, Apple was the leading notebook maker."
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How the PowerBook was Born More

How the PowerBook was Born

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  • thin thing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by catwh0re ( 540371 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @12:38AM (#14111284)
    rumours suggest intel powerbooks will be 25% thinner... if that is even possible.

  • The Story condensed (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25, 2005 @12:39AM (#14111288)
    PowerBook was born while on Safari. The child enjoyed sitting on Pa Apple's laptop, and had a run in with a Tiger at age X. Surviving a SCSI childhood in the mean streets of Motorola, PowerBook grew up to play with Firewire.

  • ah the original powerbook (Score:4, Informative)

    by nizcolas ( 597301 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @12:39AM (#14111290) Homepage Journal
    ...also affectionately referred to as the luggable [wikipedia.org]

  • Just gotta say it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday November 25, 2005 @12:41AM (#14111296) Homepage Journal
    I was at a conference, a week ago, where the presenters were using powerbooks. I think you can tell a lot about a product by how people use it. These things looked really smooth and after all my fits with a WinXP laptop, I desperately want one. Problem is we're a Windoze shop. :p
    • If you can't make the switch to Mac or don't want to support both OSes in your shop then you should wait until Intel iBooks or Powerbooks come out. You'll have a laptop with great battery life (for a regular-sized laptop - ultra portables aren't really laptops), great design and you'll be able to run Windows, Mac OS X and Linux on one machine.
      • Ohh yea, that would be wonderful. Support not one, not two, but three OS's on a single machine. That would be sweet..

        I don't see how getting Macs and running Windows on them would pave any paths to OSX, if I even considered that to be a valid move. Ya, like I wanna trade one vendor lock in for another.
      • The only problem with that is that it will be damn near impossible to use Windows with one mouse button. Might as well just get a ThinkPad.

    • Re:Just gotta say it (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ThaFooz ( 900535 )
      I was at a conference, a week ago, where the presenters were using powerbooks. I think you can tell a lot about a product by how people use it. These things looked really smooth and after all my fits with a WinXP laptop, I desperately want one. Problem is we're a Windoze shop. :p

      Well, you might be suprised at how well the integrate with Windows. There is an OSX version of MS Office, a Mac Remote Desktop client, Virtual PC for emulating the Windows environment, and AFAIK they can join Windows domains. I

  • I think PowerBooks are pretty nice (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Friday November 25, 2005 @12:41AM (#14111300)
    I just wish they'd use a better screen. Comparing Mac laptops to Windows laptops is like night and day, literally. The Mac laptops have such dim screens compared to the laptops that are available for Windows.

    I suppose it keeps the cost down, but if there is one area that really ought not be skimped on (especially for machines meant to be used by graphic designers), the LCD monitor is it, in my opinion.
    • I just wish they'd use a better screen. Comparing Mac laptops to Windows laptops is like night and day, literally. The Mac laptops have such dim screens compared to the laptops that are available for Windows.

      I suppose it keeps the cost down, but if there is one area that really ought not be skimped on (especially for machines meant to be used by graphic designers), the LCD monitor is it, in my opinion.

      Odd that. I think the Compaq I use at work is too damn bright. I prefer dimmer monitors. For that m

      • Well, since there is bound to be a slew of anecdotal evidence I may as well pipe up. I'm using an older TiBook (867 Mhz). Original battery. If I set the brightness to the middle mark I am still getting 4 hours of run time. But really, no notebook battery lasts long enough in my opinion.

        By the way, I really hate laptops with the smooth, shiny monitor glass/covering. The reflections are completely distracting.

      • I have the same thing with white on black...

        But on this PowerBook I press Command+Control+Option+8 and it switches to negative colour mode! Perfect for low light levels when you just can't crank the white down low enough.

        I seriously recommend a Mac for anyone with eyestrain. The OS has features like that and a competent zoom built in so that all programs support them, and they're available by keypresses.

    • Re:I think PowerBooks are pretty nice (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:04AM (#14111363) Homepage Journal
      The latest 15" and 17" Powerbooks supposedly use a brighter screen and are offered in higher resolutions than previous models.

      My current issue with Powerbooks is that they are still hobbled with a very slow front side bus, about a third that of a Pentium-M, with a much smaller cache to boot, 512k vs 1 or 2megs. I don't know how fast the bus on the Turion64 is, but I think those might be faster still.
    • I prefer separate night lamp. And one that isn't directed into my eyes.

      Also, I can't wait the times when completelly passive e-paper based displays will start to be used in laptops.

    • Re:I think PowerBooks are pretty nice (Score:5, Informative)

      by ocp ( 598857 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:08AM (#14111376)

      Powerbooks adjust the brightness of the screen to the available light in the user's environment. The screen can be quite dim in a poorly lit room, which results in less fatigue and less stress on your eyes when you look somewhere else besides the screen (your eyes do not need to adjust back and forth to the different lighting levels).

      At least for me, brighter is not better. I have both types of laptops at home (private and work), and once you get used to the automatic dimming of the powerbook, the windows one feels like working with a desk lamp lighting directly onto your face.

      • You're talking about the latest models, and even if we're to take your word for it that they are bright now, they have been pretty dim for a very long time.

        My mother's Powerbook G4 can barely be used near a window during the day, but my father's Thinkpad looks great in any light. Next to each other, the difference is night and day.
      • My Toshiba M1's dims in response to the ambient lighting, and it's been around for at least 2-3 years.
    • I can deal with the dim screen. I suppose I could even get used to the track pad, versus the pencil eraser thing I prefer now. But until they put TWO BUTTONS on the PowerBooks, the editors, artists, and poets can keep 'em. Common Apple -- you released a two button mouse... now fix the laptops!
      • Why is this such a problem? 99% of the time a single normal click is all that is required. The rare times you need an alternate click its an easy outstretch finger in addition to the normal click and can easily be done with one hand. The wear on my trackpad button is actually most prominent just to the right of centre. If there were two buttons there of equal size I'd be contorting my (right) hand into a less natural position, so I prefer the single button. That, and any OS/app that needs to use the right b
        • It's a problem because it needs that extra finger. I know it sounds like a small thing, but are you aware of the number of mouse clicks that go into an average work week? A lot.

          For instance, when I read an online article, being able to load links in background tabs is a godsend. I do that using a middle click. Or, I highlight the occasional word and right click to call up a dictionary.

          Had I only one mouse button, your argument is that I could simply use one extra finger to hit Command or Option. But that fi
          • The new laptops support scrolling gestures. Just drag two fingers instead of one.
          • Now that Apple have introduced multi-button support in their OS, we can use them.

            Did someone recently uncomment the mod_troll line in your httpd.conf file? =P (Support for multi button mice is not recent. I'm not sure but, but I think it's been around at least ten years. Come on, man! Are we going to get the kottke troll next?)

            However, your point about the PB lacking a second button is valid. Until Apple rectifies this (if they ever do), I suggest looking at Sidetrack [ragingmenace.com], a utility/pref pane that will give you
          • For instance, when I read an online article, being able to load links in background tabs is a godsend. I do that using a middle click. Or, I highlight the occasional word and right click to call up a dictionary.

            Well, yes, but at other times I want to open them in a background window, or in a foreground tab. There are just too damn few buttons on a mouse to do what you can do with one mouse button and modifier keys.

          • Re:I think PowerBooks are pretty nice (Score:4, Insightful)

            by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @12:06PM (#14113668) Journal
            We are talking about laptops here, and for the most part you use your thumb to operate both (or all three) buttons on a trackpad/point. This means you have to feel your way to the correct one, or even look (I use a PowerBook and a ThinkPad, by the way, so I am familiar with both). In contrast, you have a finger near the control key all of the time you are using the keyboard. The only time when a multi-button trackpad is preferable is if you are left-handed, and that is because of a brain-dead decision by Apple to have a single control key on the left hand side, making it inaccessible if you are using the trackpad with your left hand.
      • I could even get used to the track pad, versus the pencil eraser thing I prefer now.

        I think the pencil eraser thing you refer to should be referred to as a "clitoris".

    • It's funny you should say that. I've read this opinion a few times on slashdot of late. Yet here I am with my 17" Powerbook and the brightness setting is just over halfway. This means the 'book has almost twice the brightness I need. If other brand notebooks make the PB look dim I guess I'd have to wear sunglasses to use those!
    • It's only a button click away! In the Displays system preference, do a colorsync calibration. Now when it asks you for gamma, DO NOT select "mac standard gamma". Choose one of the other two options available, such as "uncorrected gamma". That will get you your gamma that you are used to seeing on windows.

    • Re:I think PowerBooks are pretty nice (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mattintosh ( 758112 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:38PM (#14114091)
      That has nothing to do with the hardware and everything to do with the target market of the Macintosh.

      See this link [cgsd.com] for more information, but the basic gist of it is this:

      - Sun and PC (read: "Windows") don't gamma-correct anything going to the display. The average graphics card/driver end up with a gamma factor of about 2.0 or 2.1, though.

      - The Mac has a standard correction factor of 1.8 due to hardware and display driver output. The reasoning for this is that it supposedly gives better color accuracy for print output. Being a complete know-nothing about graphics, I can't vouch for this.

      - SGI's are similar to the Mac, but use a different correction factor. (The link says 2.4. I'll take their word for it.)

      The result is that the screen on a Mac looks darker when uncorrected.

      Either that, or you're just looking at someone's screen in power-save mode. Auto-dim is how Apple achieves those "amazing" battery life numbers. Remember, kids, Powerbooks are made in the same factories as Vaios and Inspirons. They're just made to Apple's spec instead of Sony's or Dell's.

  • Autonomy Necessary for Creativity? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rewinn ( 647614 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @12:50AM (#14111320) Homepage

    Was the key to the strategy glancingly mentioned in the article as "...Sculley started a semiautonomous division to produce a successful portable computer"

    It seems that big chunks of autonomy are necessary to developing really high quality products that are significantly different from the main corporate line. IIRC the IBM AS/400 line was the end result of a similar process: almost a separate computer company, it is said.

    It would be interesting to test the hypothesis by comparing the failed development of the Apple Portable to the successful development of the Powerbook.

    • It seems that big chunks of autonomy are necessary to developing really high quality products that are significantly different from the main corporate line.

      The best way to develop great anything in the computing industry is to get a group of good people together, give them a goal, some constraints, enough money and stay out of their way. Most of the time this method produces something that is significantly better than average. The downside of it is that it occasionally it will produce a steaming pile of t

    • A more relevent example to most people might be the original IBM PC, which was produced in exactly the same way.

      IBM set up a separate facility in Boca Raton, Florida and gave them almost complete independence; they came up with the PC in record time.

      The speed of development was partially thanks to their operating system agreement with Microsoft and so the Dark Lord of Ubersoft [ubersoft.net] gained power at the same time.

      Sadly, the head of IBM's autonomous PC division died in a plane crash and the division was folded into
      • I think this is the worst example imaginable for two reasons:
        1. There was nothing innovative about the IBM PC. It was built using off-the-shelf components from the lowest bidder. The project wasn't about making a good PC, it was about making a quick-to-market PC because everyone is buying these PC things and IBM only had minicomputers and mainframes to sell them. The only reason people bought them was that 'no one ever got fired for buying IBM' - they were inferior to most of their current competition.
        2. Th

  • what a wordsmith (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JeffSh ( 71237 ) <jeffslashdot@m[ ].org ['0m0' in gap]> on Friday November 25, 2005 @12:56AM (#14111340)
    "After 1992 and until the disastrous 5300, Apple was the leading notebook maker."

    Man this guy is really good at confusing things. He sounds like a political writer. It would have been easier to say "For 2 years, 1993 and 1994, until the Apple Powerbook 5300 was released, Apple was the leading seller of portable computers"

    2 years? 2 years. Seriously. I had to do research to find that the powerbook 5300 was released in 1995. Taken at face value, without knowing what the 5300 is, someone could interpret Apple's position to actually have been "dominant", where it wasn't.

    Gosh. 1992. Man. The internet was barely even around! that's like stonage.

    • Yeah, but I also remember hearing IBM made more off each Apple laptop sold than apple. The chip, the HD, and the screen were all IBM...
    • She went to college in 1996 and got the 5300 on super sale. Hmm wonder why?

      The keyboard is missing lots of keys on it and the software is very unstable. She had alot of nerdy friends in college so I assumed they bad mouthed the mac to her like most geeks did back then. But she went on and on about problems with it and slow performance. Yes I know about the macOS upgrade and suggested it but she didn't want to hear it. She used it for one year before she left it in the closet and gave it to her mother when

    • except the PB100 came out in 1991. (Score:4, Informative)

      by YesIAmAScript ( 886271 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @02:19AM (#14111545)
      Asahi being the Powerbook 100. It came out in October, 1991. I remember many people having Powerbooks (100,140,170) at that time.

      So Apple had part of 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, and even a lot of 1995 because the 5300 didn't come out until August and people didn't realize the PB5300 sucked immediately.

      That's enough time that the way the writer described it is reasonable. It's about 1/3rd of the total time that laptops have even existed.

    • Re:what a wordsmith (Score:4, Funny)

      by eMartin ( 210973 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @02:28AM (#14111560)
      That's one way to interpret it.

      I thought he was saying that Apple was the leading notebook maker for 3308 years.

      And while I'm not one of those who expects Apple to go out of business anytime soon, I'm not so sure about them still being around in the disastrous year 5300.

    • Stonage? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Compuser ( 14899 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @02:32AM (#14111570)
      Is that a time period or a body condition?

  • much more interesting... (Score:4, Funny)

    by 3-State Bit ( 225583 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:00AM (#14111350)
    birth of the P-P-P-Powerbook [sbcglobal.net]

  • It was smaller (Score:5, Informative)

    by legomaniaboy ( 246786 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:05AM (#14111367) Homepage
    See, the original PowerBook was smaller than the competing portables. It set the standard for what a good notebook is. People liked the size and weight. Now most people are buying these big computers again. It's stupid! I'd much rather have my 12 inch iBook. If you want a big computer with more power, get a desktop for less that would have much better specs. One of the new G5 iMacs would be an excellent choice! It's dumb how so many companies are un-protablizing their notebooks. Come on, get back to what a notebook computers should really be like, because bigger isn't always better.

    • Re:It was smaller (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aclarke ( 307017 )
      There are all sorts of portable computers available in the world because there are all sorts of people. Different people have different needs. I'm typing this on a 12" powerbook but I'm in the process of buying a 15" or 17" to replace it. How much do you travel? Is your computer mostly plugged into an external monitor on a desk, or do you use it on an airplane? How tall/strong are you? Do you need features like a PCMCIA slot? How much computing power do you need?

      As for me, I'm usually just taking m

    • Re:It was smaller (Score:3, Insightful)

      by plumby ( 179557 )
      Now most people are buying these big computers again. It's stupid! I'd much rather have my 12 inch iBook. If you want a big computer with more power, get a desktop for less that would have much better specs.

      I always find this kind of comment amusing. "I personally have no use for one, so how could anyone else need one".

      I've got a 17" laptop and 95% of its use is while sat on the sofa at home watching TV. A desktop (which I have as well) would be absolutely useless for this - the monitor would keep falling

  • For the sake of the discussion and potential insightful commentary, what was the 5300 and why was it a "disaster"?

    I was 14 when it was released. I didn't get my first real computer 'til 1995...

    Thanks.

    • The Apple 5300 [lowendmac.com]

      From wikipedia:
      The 5300 series is widely considered Apple's worst product of the 1995-1996 time period where the company teetered on the brink of death. In its 5300ce incarnation with a TFT of 800x600 pixels, a 117 MHz PPC, 32 MB on-board RAM and hot-swappable drive bay, the 5300ce was quite ahead of other laptop models at the time, but by far failed to meet the quality standard expected for the price. Many models shipped dead on arrival, and a few 5300's used at Apple actually burst into

      • I have one of those :D I have only one problem finding a god forsaken 24V 1.87A DC transformer that i can use for the damn thing since i picked it up second hand damn cheap and never had the damn ac adapter!

        Anyone got one lying around :P i want to get this thing working And add it to my set of computational anachronisms. Like my Genuine... Get this :P fished from a dumpster, Apple Powerbook 170 (unfortunatly no longer working and ac adapter now lost :(, PARTS WELCOME ! )

    • Re:For the sake of the discussion... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) * on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:49AM (#14111484)
      The Powerbook 5300 was the first model of Powerbook released with a PowerPC processor. Up until then the Powerbooks had used 68k chips that Classic Macs used (Macs before the PowerMac line). They were very powerful laptops but also pretty expensive, the fully loaded 5300ce 32/1.1GB model sold for $6,800. There's a lot of factors that contributed to the "disaster" moniker. The first was that a number of units shipped were simply DOA and had to be swapped out. There were also problems with the case and mouse button, problems shared with the Powerbook 190 which was the 5300's 68k powered sibling.

      There were also qute a few problems with the 5300's Li-ion batteries. Due to Sony's manufacturing error the batteries would short and there were a couple reports of them actually catching on fire. Switching the Li-ion batteries out for NiMH ones solved the problem but seriously reduced the 5300's battery life. This was coupled with power supplies that couldn't power all of the expansion bays was quite a mess.

      Performance wise the 5300 was very unimpressive. It used a 603e PowerPC chip but they didn't bother sticking an L2 cache on the machine. The clock speed wuld have been alright with a decent sized L2 cache but as it stood the machine was dog slow in most apps.

      The Powerbook 5300 was responsible for many of the Apple build quality memes of the mid-90s.

  • Trackball Position? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:21AM (#14111415) Journal
    The most striking difference between the PowerBooks and the PC portables was the presence of a built-in trackball and its position on the case. Other manufacturers included trackballs (or other pointing devices), but they were often placed in awkward positions.

    I'll call BS on that!

    I'll admit it is somewhat a matter of personal preference, but I liked having a trackball on the right-side of the unit much more than in the center of the unit. Being near the edge of the unit allows you to bend your hand around it, making it almost feel like a normal thumb-operated trackball.

    The center-mounted trackball necessitated the same terrible hand contortions you're familiar with due to notebook touchpads. I can certainly imagine it was a real pain for left-handed users, but you can't always make everything ambidexterous, and comfortable.

    I'd pay thousands of dollars if I could get a modern notebook with a fairly normal keyboard and side-mounted trackball, like I had on my old 20MHz Compaq notebook.

    Sometimes progress, isn't... :-(

    • Re:Trackball Position? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by torpedobird ( 895167 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:39AM (#14111462)
      ...unless you were left handed
      • Or a touch typist.
      • Not neccesary. I'm 100% lefthanded except for... using a mouse or trackball. I've seen several lefthanders acting the same, I often wonder about that. The nice thing about this is, I can scroll, click-through etc, while jotting down things with my 'writing-hand', not that superbig an advantage, but sometimes quite handy. OTOH, I use joysticks lefthanded :s
    • The center-mounted trackball (or trackpad on most modern laptops) doesn't just allow for ambidexterity, but that also puts it out of the way of the hands when typing. Yes, I agree that an off-center trackball/pad would be easier to use when moving the mouse, but when you start typing it's going to get in the way quickly. As far as I'm concerned, these days, it's just for emergencies anyway. If you're sitting for more than 10 minutes and have a flat surface, it pays to break out the USB mouse.
      • You don't even need a flat surface if you have a small USB mouse, mine is small enough to be used on the palmrest area even on my 12" iBook... I also prefer it because it has 2 buttons and a scroller...
    • You can't always make everything ambidexterous, and comfortable.

      Why not?

      Can someone explain to me how this is insightful?
    • "I'd pay thousands of dollars if I could get a modern notebook with a fairly normal keyboard and side-mounted trackball, like I had on my old 20MHz Compaq notebook."

      I'm pretty sure you can still get a Mac Portable in excellent condition, and it might well cost you a fat wad. But modern? Well yes, compared to an older machine...
    • I'll admit it is somewhat a matter of personal preference, but I liked having a trackball on the right-side of the unit much more than in the center of the unit. Being near the edge of the unit allows you to bend your hand around it, making it almost feel like a normal thumb-operated trackball.

      It's not just a question of preference: in general, the center mounted trackball under the space bar tests out well in usability tests, better than side-mounted trackballs or trackpads.

      There may have been specific pro
    • IMO the best useability feature of the PowerBook trackball was the fact that there was a mouse button was directly below the keyboard, so you could click without lifting your fingers from the keyboard. I could type/select/cut/paste/type incredibly fast in BBEdit on my PowerBook 140, all without losing my finger position on the keyboard.

      The current trend on PC laptops is to have the buttons below the touchpad, so instead of being immediately accessible under your thumb, you have to lift your hands from

  • Apple IIc (Score:2, Interesting)

    by VirtualSquid ( 311810 ) *
    Apple had no presence in the portables market prior to 1992

    Where's the historical perspective? It may come as a surprise to some, but Apple actually made computers *before* the Macintosh. The Apple IIc [apple2history.org] was compact and roughly portable; although i couldn't tell you for sure (i was a C64 hacker at the time) we all assumed the Apple IIc was a portable because we see it being used on a beach in the movie "2010". Although looking back now, one has to wonder where the battery is in that compact little case.
    • The IIc didn't have a monitor attached; you had to connect it to a separate monitor. It also didn't run on batteries [old-computers.com] (or at least not as supplied by Apple - apparently third parties released very large battery packs for them).
      • There was a small monochrome flip up/down monitor available for the IIc that made it look a *lot* like the Mac Portable in TFA. The IIc in the film version of 2010 that the GP refers to has one attached.

        I remember the battery packs too.

        Back in junior high I really wanted to swipe my granddad's IIc (we had a IIe) and set it up as a portable Apple.

  • Bring back the POWERBOOK TRACKBALL! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wolfpaws ( 112843 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @02:03AM (#14111510)
    Honestly, I still miss the trackballs of the 1xx Powerbooks, as well as the recessed trackballs of the Duos.

    They had the best ergonomic experience of any laptop pointing devices ever. The size and mass of the ball, the position of the buttons...Just outstanding.

  • First Apple Portable--Not the Powerbook!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by SierraPete ( 834755 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @02:34AM (#14111576)
    I know I'm immediately showing my age here, but Apple's first portable computer was not the Powerbook. It was the Apple //c (circa 1983), complete with an 80 column LCD monitor, a battery pack. Reference at http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/appleiic/ [obsoleteco...museum.org].

    Popular? No. It was too expensive, the LCD screen was poor, battery life was awful, and regular visits with a chiropractor for the battery pack were not out the question. But it was the first Apple "laptop."

  • I Remember When These First Came Out... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @04:54AM (#14111987) Journal
    ...They were shown in 1991 at WWDC. I was there.

    The presentation was actually very well done, I thought--almost as good as a SteveNote. Back then, without Steve Jobs and his ego, essentially every group (desktop hardware, imaging, system software, etc.) gave a keynote on a different subject. Sculley gave the Monday keynote where he usually talked about the business side. Pretty boring stuff and Sculley wasn't that great a speaker anyway. Hell, even Bill Gates did a better presentation than Sculley (he was also there).

    So we got this keynote from some VP of "Portable Computing." He started off talking about the Macintosh Portable and how they had finally identified the market for this device.

    Cut to a shot of the space shuttle taking off.

    Yup. The Macintosh Portable was the first personal computer in space (and I can hear the HP41c fans sharpening their knives). They showed it floating around the cabin of the shuttle, as light as a feather. They even showed something that everyone had wanted to see since the first Macintosh: A disk being ejected across the room.

    Amusing.

    The VP then showed off Apple Remote Access. One odd thing about his presentation, though, was that the computer he was using had no video-out. Thus, there was a guy standing behind him with a portable camera zoomed in on the screen. But if you paid attention--and I didn't until somebody mentioned it after the presentation--you could see the the edges around the screen were dark and a Macintosh Portable was sort of a light Macintosh SE grey. So ARA was being demoed on a PowerBook--we just couldn't see the whole thing.

    Anyway, they were finally ready to unveil the replacement for the Macintosh Portable. They wheeled this table out onto the stage with a cloth covering a device. The VP whipped off the cloth to show us: A LaserWriter. Various chuckles from the audience. "Well, it's pretty portable..." the VP quipped as he tried to lift the LaserWriter (Apple LaserWriters weighed about 50 pounds). Suddenly, a disembodied voice from the booth called out: "Look in the paper tray." The VP reached into the paper tray and pulled out a PowerBook! And the audience went wild.

    Definitely one of the better Apple presentations.
  • Why, no... no... has someone said something? Who told you this?

  • Outbound anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by WestBoca ( 88656 )
    Of course, the Outbound, a Mac clone that used semi-legal SE ROM chips, was the first true Mac laptop...or something to that effect. I LOVED mine, and their customer support was the absolute BEST...which may explain why they're now kaput.

    http://www.jagshouse.com/outbound.html [jagshouse.com]

    and

    http://www.lowendmac.com/clones/outbound.html [lowendmac.com]

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