Portable Computing Turns 30

5 Apr 2011

...
   Portable
Computing Turns 30 according to PC Authority Mag - may be of interest to some
subscribers...

 http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/253319,portable-computing-turns-30.aspx  This
depends on how you define 'portable' and 'computer' :-)

 More seriously there were portable minicomputers (meaning they had handles nad you could
just about stagger with one) over 40 years ago. Of coruse they needed mains power to
operate

 I think the first programamble battery-operated device with conditional branching was the
HP65 calcualtor from 1974. Whether you call that a 'computer' depeneds on our
exact defintion. 
It's hardly worth debating.  Presumably, cctalk'ers already know that 
consumer magazines will dummy-down and generalize the "first" concept.  
And many of us also know that even without qualifying the definitions of 
"portable" and "computer", the Osborne wasn't even the first of
the 
suitcase computers -- and I don't mean just the Xerox NoteTaker 
prototype, I mean commercially available stuff from companies such as 
MCM, Bobst, and GM Research (excluding the IBM 5100 which was the * 
least * "portable" of its generation.)

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Portable Computing Turns 30