How the PowerBook was Born

Sabah Arif writes "Apple had no presence in the portables market prior to 1992. Its attempt at creating a laptop Macintosh, the Macintosh Portable, weighed almost 15 lbs and failed to sell. On the personal behest of John Sculley, Apple contracted with Sony to create Asahi, a smaller Portable. Apple developed two high end models in company. After 1992 and until the disastrous 5300, Apple was the leading notebook maker."

Comments

I think PowerBooks are pretty nice

[ReformedExCon]

I just wish they'd use a better screen. Comparing Mac laptops to Windows laptops is like night and day, literally. The Mac laptops have such dim screens compared to the laptops that are available for Windows.

I suppose it keeps the cost down, but if there is one area that really ought not be skimped on (especially for machines meant to be used by graphic designers), the LCD monitor is it, in my opinion.

what a wordsmith

[JeffSh]

"After 1992 and until the disastrous 5300, Apple was the leading notebook maker."

Man this guy is really good at confusing things. He sounds like a political writer. It would have been easier to say "For 2 years, 1993 and 1994, until the Apple Powerbook 5300 was released, Apple was the leading seller of portable computers"

2 years? 2 years. Seriously. I had to do research to find that the powerbook 5300 was released in 1995. Taken at face value, without knowing what the 5300 is, someone could interpret Apple's position to actually have been "dominant", where it wasn't.

Gosh. 1992. Man. The internet was barely even around! that's like stonage.

Trackball Position?

[evilviper]

The most striking difference between the PowerBooks and the PC portables was the presence of a built-in trackball and its position on the case. Other manufacturers included trackballs (or other pointing devices), but they were often placed in awkward positions.

I'll call BS on that!

I'll admit it is somewhat a matter of personal preference, but I liked having a trackball on the right-side of the unit much more than in the center of the unit. Being near the edge of the unit allows you to bend your hand around it, making it almost feel like a normal thumb-operated trackball.

The center-mounted trackball necessitated the same terrible hand contortions you're familiar with due to notebook touchpads. I can certainly imagine it was a real pain for left-handed users, but you can't always make everything ambidexterous, and comfortable.

I'd pay thousands of dollars if I could get a modern notebook with a fairly normal keyboard and side-mounted trackball, like I had on my old 20MHz Compaq notebook.

Sometimes progress, isn't... :-(

Re:Trackball Position?

[torpedobird]

...unless you were left handed