World's First Laptop "OSBORNE1"

World's First Laptop

 

OSBORNE1

Introduced:	April 1981
Price:	US $1,795
Weight:	24.5 pounds
CPU:	Zilog Z80 @ 4.0 MHz
RAM:	64K RAM
Display:	built-in 5" monitor
	53 X 24 text
Ports:	parallel / IEEE-488
	modem / serial port
Storage:	dual 5-1/4 inch, 91K drives
OS:	CP/M

Released in 1981 by the Osborne Computer Corporation, the Osborne 1 is considered to be the first true portable computer.

It closes-up for protection, and has a carrying handle. It even has an optional battery pack, so it doesn't have to plugged into the AC outlet for power. While quite revolutionary, the Osborne does have its limitations. For example, the screen is only 5" (diagonal) in size, and can't display more than 52 characters per line of text. To compensate, you can actually scroll the screen display back and forth with the cursor keys to show lines of text up to 128 characters wide. The Osborne was designed with transportation in mind - it had to be rugged and able to survive being moved about. That's one reason that the screen is so small - a larger and heavier screen would be more susceptible to damage. The two pockets beneath the floppy drives work great for floppy disk storage, although the Osborne modem also fits perfectly in the left pocket and plugs into the front-mounted "modem" port. Designed as a true portable computer system - it can be considered airline carry-on luggage, and it will fit under the passenger seat of any commercial airliner

 

While the Osborne was a good deal at $1795, it also came bundled with about $1500 of free software:

v  CP/M System

v  CP/M Utility

v  Super-calc spreadsheet application

v  WordStar word processing application with Mail Merge

v  Microsoft MBASIC programming language

v  Digital Research CBASIC programming language

The Osborne was a huge overnight success, with sales reaching 10,000 units a month. In September 1981, Osborne Computer Company had its first US$1 million sales month.

In 1982, the Osborne Computer Company announced a successor, the Executive model OCC-2 (seen below), with a larger screen and a cooling fan. Shortly thereafter, they announced the next system, the Vixen

, a portable running the CP/M operating system. Unfortunately, potential customers stopped buying the Osborne 1, waiting for the Executive and the Vixen, which wasn't even ready to ship yet. Additionally, the new Kaypro II

was now available with a larger screen for less money. Osborne sales plummeted and Osborne quickly ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy in September of 1983

.

It probably wasn't the company's fault, since by this time most of the serious computer users were gravitating towards the new IBM PC

, which had already been available since 1981. Anything that wasn't IBM compatible was bound to fail. In 1983, the Compaq Portable

came out - a portable computer similar to the Osborne, except that it was IBM compatible and ran MS-DOS. It was a great success.