Lee Felsenstein says you should read my book :)

I am humbled (yes, it is possible!) .... got a very nice email from Homebrew Computer Club moderator / SOL-20 co-developer / Osborne 1 chief engineer (and many more): "This book presents the history of personal, portable computing from the abacus to the present day in a remarkably thorough, accessible fashion. Not only the winners are described but the also-rans and almost-made-its. Koblentz has done an admirable job of research and description in covering the field. I've always been careful to claim that my Osborne-1 design was only the "first commercially-successful portable computer" because I knew that a book like this would be forthcoming to show the time lines, descriptions and designers of earlier efforts. By nature a survey of the field, it is thoroughly researched and can provide pointers to more in-depth investigations." Evan again: still just eight bucks in PDF edition. http://www.abacustosmartphone.com. Also: This is version "1.0"; all first-batch readers will also get the PDF of version 1.x for free when it's ready.