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Portable Pioneer Adam Osborne dead at 64
douglips writes "Yahoo News has the story. He's best remembered for the blunder of announcing that his next version of the Osborne portable computer was so much better, that nobody bought the current version and the company died quickly. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon."
I hope Sharon,Kelly,Jack and of course Ozzy will be able to go trough this with force and pride.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
But I really hope when I die I'm not best known for what I did wrong =/
It seems fitting, in a nerdish way, that he should die at 64. There is a certain symmetry somehow.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Writing the manuals for the Intel 4004, the very first single chip CPU.
Rest in peace.
-----
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
"My reincarnated self is going to be waaaaaay better than this.
I have family photos with him back from the early 80s. I was just a tot when he and aunt Barb divorced, so I don't remember him. My mom has told me that I called him Uncle A-O (since my name is also Adam).
But a few of my extended family members still have Osborne 1s in their basements/attics/garages. I played with one last year at a family reunion. The article is correct, it's almost exactly like a portable sewing machine.
So long, Uncle A-O!
He came to my school while I was in the MBA program. He gave us a little speach on what it meant to be an entrepreneur.
He said, "An entrepreneur is the kind of guy that walks into a bar with friends, and notices the one woman that is too hot for anyone to consider making an approach. The entrepreneur is able to walk up to that woman, begin a conversation, and have her under his thumb before the evening's end."
He then went to speak of a lawsuit against is VP line of software. He had a spreadsheet and was in a lawsuit against Lotus.
He said something like, "Who care if I lose. Any publicity is good publicity. When I'm at the press conference after verdict, I'll announce my new line of Artificial Intelligence software."
Just thought I'd share with you.
RIP Adam.
If your woundering heres a Picture of it. man i thought my kaypro was ugly and old.
Gadzooks how could one resist? But for a lot of folks who needed a computer not bolted to the floor (like reporters), the Osborne1 fit the bill.
"Nobody will ever need more than 64 years of life..." Yet another shortsighted designer :(
You make light of this machine's accomplishments, but in its time, it was truly a wonderful machine. Just the thought that there was this computer and you could actually take it with you on a trip so you had it available where ever you were going was just fantastic. While there were a few that pre-dated it (there was a similarly sized APL machine, the IBM APL 5100), this was truly a revolutionary machine. It was such a shame when they announced the Osborne 2 prematurely and EVERYONE decided to stop buying the current model and buy the new one when it came out. But, out of this disaster people realized just how powerful the idea of a computer you could haul around really was.
I'm 40. Back in the day, I worked at the Tyson's Corner ComputerLand store, where they sold the Osborne I. It had a Z-80, it ran CP/M -- the precursor to what could have been DOS if only Kildall hadn't been out flying his airplane the on the day IBM knocked on his door. The bundled software with an Osborne I included PacMan, adapted for the 16x64 text display, and I played that on the floor demo a lot.
Looking back now, it seems to me that the Osborne books were the logical O'Reilly Associates of that era. I was particularly fond of "Introduction to Microprocessors" and their various assembly language introductions. My copies were majorly dogeared. The only one I hung onto was my 6502 Assembly Language Programming by Lance Leventhal.
About ten years ago, some friends of mine gave me an Osborne I, which they picked up for $7 at a garage sale in Colorado Springs. I turned it on a few years ago and it still worked... was thinking of Ebaying it but I think I might just hang on to it now. Osborne will be remembered by me mostly for the Osborne I and those great books he published.
never ask a question you don't want to know the answer to
I worked with Mr. Osborne during the late 1980s at Paperback Software (I was the Tech Support Manager). He was a brilliant, charismatic leader with enough ego for four people. A member of MENSA, he had a beautiful house in the Berkeley Hills (spared from the Oakland Hills fire by feet, IIRC), a lovely wife, and he threw marvelous parties.
Paperback Software was a great idea - cheap versions of popular software sold with paperback manuals for $99.00 or so (I think VP-Expert sold for more). VP-Planner was the Lotus clone, VP-Info was a dBase clone, VP-Graphics was a standalone graphics program, VP-Expert was an expert systems program, and there were a couple more I don't remember off the top of my head.
He was a good person to work for and with, and always knew how to make a splash and cause a ruckus. And it was fun to go out for Indian food with him, since he spoke Urdu and Hindi.
Rest in peace, sir.
As I recall, Osborne first came to public attention by starting a software company that gave away its product. Income was supposed to be derived from selling manuals. The software side of this company didn't work out, but the publishing side found a niche -- which is why there's still an imprint called McGraw-Hill/Osborne.
The Osborne 1 was a such a cool machine.s borne/
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/o
It was based on a Zilog Z80A processor (same as that used in the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the Colecovision console, and similar to that used in the original Gameboy), but curiously, used Motorola peripheral chips.
It came bundled with a wide selection of software - Supercalc, Wordstar, an operating system called CP/M (the blueprint for DOS), and a BASIC interpreter by a small software company called Microsoft.
One of the really cool things about the Osborne is that it was sold with a manual about 500 pages thick. There are chapters on each of the software packages, but also a great deal of technical information on the machine itself - memory maps, details on the types of peripherals and that kind of thing.
It was clearly the product of a man and a company who loved computing, released in a spirit of openness and innocence for a hobbyist culture. Sadly, that culture died soon after, and stayed that way for some time.
It was the first computer I ever had, which started me off down a road that eventually led to me earn a degree in Computer Engineering. When I first heard about Linux, it was that same hobbyist culture that immediately appealed to me.
I think I'll boot mine up tonight. Thanks, Adam.
garethw
For those interested, the Vixen is the system that was pre-announced and caused the demise of Osborne Computer due to the ensuing cash flow crunch.
Having an Osborne 1 at the time and active in FOG I remember lusting over the Vixen. How times have changed...
However, nobody bothered to inform the guards that the company manufactured portable computers--a new idea at the time--and many of the employees walked an Osborne right out the door, carrying it like a briefcase. The guards had no idea the company's precious assets were being removed right under their noses.
I never had an Osborne, although I knew a few people who did. I ended up with the Compaq clone and you could have seen me using it (as I've posted before, for anybody keeping score) to run the core functions of my business until 1999.
I loved that old 4mhz battle ax, and only retired it because purely mechanical bits that I couldn't find replacements for began to wear out.
I'd beg to differ somewhat on the Toshiba comment. Sometimes a luggable really is the proper portable solution because sometimes you don't want a laptop or "desktop replacement."
You want a desktop that's easy to take with you.
And now, for the first time, with new low power, low heat cpu's and integrated chipsets on *desktop* motherboards a quarter the size that Osborne was able to make them, and loverly full size, flat panel, LCD screens, a true transportable, *NOT* a laptop, is truly possible to make.
I intend to make one.
I'd name it in honor of Adam Osborne, only I can't name it Osborne, of course, and I can't name it Adam, for, ummmmm, obvious reasons.
I know, I'll use a TLA for (A)dam (O)sborne (L)uggable.
Yeah, that'll work.
KFG
Yes, it was known as the Vixen. The specs I was able to dig up are:
Osborne Vixen
Built in 1984
Price: $1,300 USD
CPU: Z80A 4 MHz
Memory: 64KB RAM
Interfaces: RS232C, parallel
Monitor: 7" Amber
Text Resolution: 80x24
Graphics Resolution: 640x240
OS:CP/M 2.2
FDD: 2 x 360 KB FDD (DS, DD)
Keyboard: 61 Keys
Size: (WxDxH) 32cm x 41cm x 16cm
Weight: 8.2 Kg
Languages: MBasic
Options: 10 MB HDD ($1,500 USD)
Damn, dude, you better read up on your industry history. I don't know the origin of what you posted about Osborne, but I think you'd have a good shot at finding it with the help of a good proctologist and a flashlight. :-)
Osborne got his start working for Intel. He wrote the docs for their first microprocessors.
For a while he had an industry-gossip columns (at least one was called "From The Fountainhead," IIRC) in Interface Age and InfoWorld magazines.
He self-published a book called An Introduction To Microprocessors. One of the cofounders of IMSAI was so impressed with the book, he struck a deal with Osborne to include a copy with each IMSAI machine sold.
That IMSAI deal provided the means for Osborne to start his own publishing company, which produced computer books. He would often go to Homebrew Computer Club meetings with boxes full of his books, and leave with empty boxes and wads of cash.
He eventually sold his publishing company to McGraw-Hill, for millions.
The money from that deal was what he used to start Osborne Computer. The Osborne I was designed by Lee Felsenstein, another prominent name in the history of the Early Days.
These Osborne facts and more can be found in the excellent book Fire in the Valley, by Paul Freiberger & Michael Swaine.
~Philly
POKE 61440, 127
That'll put a dim rectangle in the upper left corner of the 52x24 screen. Too bad no one ever asks me that in an interview these days...
As I sit here, I hold in my hand the Osborne I User's Reference Guide. I don't have the computer, but I kept the book for fun. It reads like an old school user's guide, with complete references for BASIC, and a chapter titled "IEEE-488 Implementation". Very useful for users.
Some specs:
SCREEN SIZE:
DISK CAPACITY:
Double-Density:
- 200K bytes per diskette
- 185K bytes of data space using CP/M
- 40 tracks of information
- 5 physical sectors each track (soft-sectored)
- 1024 bytes per sector
- 40 logical sectors to CP/M (128 bytes each)
- 1K-byte extents maintained by CP/M
- 3 reserved system tracks
Single Density:SERIAL PORT:
IEEE-488 PORT:
I'll stop typing now before I get to the memory map... :)