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In reviewing Apple's contributions to computing, people tend to overlook the PowerBook, presumably because the first models were released during Jobs's absence.
by webwielder 13y ago
In reviewing Apple's contributions to computing, people tend to overlook the PowerBook, presumably because the first models were released during Jobs's absence. But it really was revolutionary, and turned the hulking ergonomic nightmares of the 80s into pretty much the form we have today. As a bonus, Apple also pioneered the use of the trackpad a few years later.
During the iPhone presentation, Jobs actually mentions the importance of the PowerBook in Apple's history. I always got a kick out of Jobs praising stuff from the Sculley era like the PowerBook and QuickTime, as it signaled that he recognized that Apple was bigger than him, and because Apple simply doesn't get enough credit for some of the stuff they did the "dark days".
- rsl7 13y agoApple's portable computer at the time was the //c, a really well designed computer. of course, you had to bring your own monitor. but still, that was a nice machine.
- nsxwolf 13y agoThere was an accessory for the //c called the "Apple Flat Panel Display", which was an LCD monitor you could attach and make the machine almost portable.
- rsl7 13y agoI never knew! cool.
- salgernon 13y agoCompletely useless trivia: Roy Scheider is shown using one of these (on a beach, no less!) in 1984's _2010_. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/trivia?item=tr0748438 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/trivia?item=tr0748438
- rsl7 13y agowow, that takes me back.
- yuhong 13y agoYea, thinking about it, the now famous Mac Plus was released just after Steve Jobs was ousted.
- yuhong 13y agoAnd on Copland, what is funny is that Copland tried to move the Mac Toolbox into kernel mode even though Copland never intended to preemptively multitask GUI apps (that was to wait until Gershwin). I read they once was able to run the "Blue Box" on Copland's NuKernel which would have been a good starting point.
- muyuu 13y agoThe first laptop proper is probably the GRiD Compass 1101 ( http://oldcomputers.net/grid1101.html http://oldcomputers.net/grid1101.html ) Psion introduced trackpads in the late 80s and they didn't make it to PowerBooks until the mid 90s. The capacitive trackpad was invented by Cirque and it was Cirque's Glidepoint that Apple used originally.
- agumonkey 13y agoI wish to 3d print the GRiD case, find a monochrome orange/black LCD, fit some arm board into it and marry it. Maybe bunny huang open mobo .. ps: There was one listed on a local 'craigslist' for a few bucks, I missed it by a few days, it was deeply saddening.
- smoyer 13y ago"fit some arm board into it" How about making it a dock for your phone? It would be really cool to have a hardware keyboard, bigger display, extended battery and external storage that you could simply plug into the phone's USB port. If you make one for a Galaxy S4, I'll certainly buy one!
- agumonkey 13y agoIn case this isn't well bred sarcasm, there are smartphone docking 'laptops' already. Maybe not universal. And I didn't think about that because my 'feature phone' could probably not drive even a 1024x768 LCD.
- Yetanfou 13y agoUhhhh... I still have my first laptop around, a Zenith ZFL-181 (http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/8094/Zenith-ZFL-181-93-Laptop/ http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/8094/Zenith-ZFL-181-9...) from 1987. Apart from having the best keyboard on any laptop I ever used - including the Thinkpads which followed after - it can not be called a 'hulking ergonomic nightmare'. It was rather neat, with those flip-up drives (no harddisk for you young whipper-snappers) and ran like tarred lightning after I swapped the 8088 for a V20. Of course it ran MS-DOS, only handled 720KB DD floppies and had a weird blue-white 640x400 screen, but it was a laptop by all means. Apple launched the first (68000-powered) Powerbook in 1991 - 4 years later. It was a fine machine, but by no means as revolutionary as you make it out to be.