What a difference 30 years makes...

[A Guy]

30 years ago, the Osborne 1 made its debut as the world's first portable PC



24 pounds, 5" display, $1,795 :shock:

Source

A Guy

 

[Ciara]

30 years ago :shock: ... Wow thats like ancient !

 

[Maguscreed]

Many a caveman was killed by quick predators because of the weight of this crude device.

 

[rbeldua]

amazing... imagine the ram it uses on that time (64kb), i wonder if i could play galaxian or asteriods in that one

 

[mjf]

30 years ago :shock: ... Wow thats like ancient !

And in really ancient times, 10 years before that, we had men walking and driving on the moon.
They would have loved that computer.

 

[Maguscreed]

...yeah those crazy ancient people and their space travel....

 

[smsff7]

I bet someone could build a ni9ce computer in one of those cases with only a little modding

 

[Maguscreed]

I've always liked this guy's work, kind of a steam punk feel.
Datamancer.net - Technical Art and Steampunk Contraptions

 

[Karln]

With the big floppy. Its just shows the incredible progress of informatique in 30 years.

 

[Fayla]

That looks like my shredder

 

[spinifex]

With the big floppy. Its just shows the incredible progress of informatique in 30 years.

Our first computer had 2 x 5 1/4" floppies.
Also recall playing Karateka on an Apple II. Ground breaking stuff.

 

[Ciara]

30 Years ago I was -9

 

[richnrockville]

Adam Osborne made the mistake of announcing a new version as soon as this one hit the streets. And I was ready to buy one and then a little later, IBM announced its new PC. Osborne never recovered from that PR failure.

Rich

 

[noobvious]

With the big floppy. Its just shows the incredible progress of informatique in 30 years.

Our first computer had 2 x 5 1/4" floppies.
Also recall playing Karateka on an Apple II. Ground breaking stuff.

I remember the Apple IIe in the 8th grade at school....1983 or '84, I think.... with the green on green monitor...the librarians took away the dual-5 1/4" floppy drive because some of my classmates were pirating and selling games to the other students.

I spent my study halls in there playing an old game called The Bard's Tale....seemed much more fun than studying....lol.

 

[Borg 386]

Yeah, those were the days when you had to not only be a geek to use them, but had to have the muscles to carry the freakin thing....

Our teacher gave a demo of some old "portable" computer in class, took 10 mins to set up.

 

[Kari]

My first "laptop" was Toshiba T1200. It belonged to my employer, I got it in 1990 when it already was a bit old and used it almost two years until I finished working for that employer.

This Toshiba has a very special place in my heart. I met my dear Angie when taking a break in a café, Toshiba on the table, when she came to ask me if she could just look the computer. This was only a few months after the closed communistic East Germany where Angie was born and had lived had ceased to exist and Angie was on her first trip to West, keenly interested in everything western, everything modern.

You youngsters today can't even think how it had been to her to live in a society where a trip to neighboring city needed a permission from authorities sought at least month prior to the trip, where you might have had money but nothing to buy with it, where for instance if you wanted a car, an average waiting time from ordering and paying for it to the day you finally got it was between 12 and 15 years. Really, incredible but true! And this "short" waiting period was only if you had ordered a so called people's car Trabant, the cheapest one. If you wanted a "more luxurious" Wartburg, you had to wait closer to 20 years.

Long story short, this Toshiba was the thing that introduced us, thus having a special place in our hearts. All modern technology was new to Angie and interested her very much, which make her to start talking with me. Who says it's not good to be nerd if you want to meet women?

Kari

 

[mjf]

Adam Osborne made the mistake of announcing a new version as soon as this one hit the streets. And I was ready to buy one and then a little later, IBM announced its new PC. Osborne never recovered from that PR failure.

Rich

Yet IBM's downplaying of the importance of the PC was one of it's biggest Corporate blunders. Outsourced the OS to some kids - the kids did well.

 

[Karln]

 

[jebuchanan]

30 Years ago I was -9

And now you're all grown up

 

[profdlp]

Adam Osborne made the mistake of announcing a new version as soon as this one hit the streets. And I was ready to buy one and then a little later, IBM announced its new PC. Osborne never recovered from that PR failure.

Rich

I was about to post this:

Osborne effect

Maybe that explains why we see a lot of companies, most notably Apple, keep things close to the vest as long as possible.