Friday , 29 March 2024

History of world’s first laptop or portable computer

Laptops we use today have evolved a great deal. The efforts date back to 1970s and 1980s where many companies tried to build compact portable computers with the capabilities of a desktop computer. Alan Kay of the Xerox Corporation was the first person to propose the concept of portable personal computer in the year 1971. His concept was called as Dynabook.

Read Evolution of Laptop or Notebook computer to know how the laptops evolved over time and details like when was the first clamshell design based laptop released, what was the processor used in the first laptop, what was the first true laptop and which laptop was used for the first time in space etc..,

What is the first laptop or portable computer and who was the manufacturer of first laptop?

The first laptop or first portable computer is Osborne 1. It was invented by Adam Osborne in 1981. It was launched by Osborne Computer Corporation in April 1981. Osborne 1 is microprocessor based portable device and it was very heavy and large. This was the first device which allowed the people to carry their computers and data with them.

Osborne 1 is the world's first laptop or first portable computer
Osborne 1 paved the way for the Compaq portable.

What are the features of the world’s first laptop?

Osborne 1 featured a five inch CRT monitor. It ran the CP/M operating system which stands for Control Program for Microcomputers. Its weight was around 10.7 kilograms. Although it did not comprise of any inbuilt battery and needed to be powered directly from a socket, it was called as the first laptop as it could be carried easily by hand. The price of Osborne 1 was $1795. It had 64 kilobytes of main memory and housed a 4 MHz Z80 CPU. It had a detachable keyboard which also acts as the lid of the case. It offered a bundle of software which included MBASIC from Microsoft, Wordstar word processor, Nominal, Sales and purchase ledgers, spreadsheet software etc.., It also had two built in floppy drives which could hold 91K of data each. To know more about Osborne 1 and its successors, please visit – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1

Also read:

Share On

About Sai Prashanth

IT professional. Love to write.