We’ve come a long way in our industrial design of portable computers, haven’t we? Here’s a look at some of the first portables from 1981 to 1992:
Epson HX-20
TRS-80 Model 100
IBM 5155
TRS Model 200
Compaq SLT/286
Nec Ultralite
Macintosh Portable
Zenith MinisPort
Compaq LTE
Microsoft Ballpoint Mouse
Apple Powerbook 100
IBM Thinkpad 700
Anyone want to betray their age and admit that they owned one of these?
[via TDM]
Rick says
I didn’t get a laptop until 2000 – IBM Thinkpad, I believe. To date myself, I first learned BASIC on a TRS80 in Jr High. My brother brought home a Commodore 64 when they came out. Now posting this from a sweet Macbook Pro. Hard to believe that memory used to be measured in kilobytes versus gigabytes.
David Tonen says
My first laptop was a Compaq LTE
ML says
I owned and worked for Commodore when they were phasing out the C-64. This was when we when from component level testing to modular testing
BenJPickett says
Didn’t own one, but I did work on the IBM 5155 portable and later model IBM (can’t remember what it was called) but it’s a lot like the top picture with the breifcase except the top of the case was the 4″ screen in all of it’s 2 tone glory, the thing weighed in at an ultra-light 35 pounds.
I didn’t get to work on these because I’m that old, I had a teacher in high school that was a collector of old systems (he does have an Apple II with the autographs inside the case, purchased new-in-box) and he let a few of us disect those old IBMs with him to help give an example of how much parts had changed.
Ashley says
My first laptop was three years ago. I’m only on this page because I didn’t know what laptops look liked in the 80s. I didn’t think they came out until the 90s. That first laptop looked weird. It’s like a keyboard with a tiny calculator screen.
Eric Dye says
True!