Lee Felsenstein says you should read my book :)

[Evan Koblentz]

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.