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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."
rumours suggest intel powerbooks will be 25% thinner... if that is even possible.
I was at a conference, a week ago, where the presenters were using powerbooks. I think you can tell a lot about a product by how people use it. These things looked really smooth and after all my fits with a WinXP laptop, I desperately want one. Problem is we're a Windoze shop. :p
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
Odd that. I think the Compaq I use at work is too damn bright. I prefer dimmer monitors. For that matter I really hate the black on white, like on typing paper, scheme which I think contributes to my migrain headaches.)
Dimmer may be a way to conserve power. Do Powerbooks have issues with power consumption? How do they rate?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Was the key to the strategy glancingly mentioned in the article as "...Sculley started a semiautonomous division to produce a successful portable computer"
It seems that big chunks of autonomy are necessary to developing really high quality products that are significantly different from the main corporate line. IIRC the IBM AS/400 line was the end result of a similar process: almost a separate computer company, it is said.
It would be interesting to test the hypothesis by comparing the failed development of the Apple Portable to the successful development of the Powerbook.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
By the way, I really hate laptops with the smooth, shiny monitor glass/covering. The reflections are completely distracting.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I have an ancient powerbook 500, running an equally ancient build of debian. Its used as an nfs share and as an ssh frontend to a router's console port. It has an uptime measured in years. Luggable? ..sure, Undying? Oh yes.
The Apple 5300
From wikipedia:The 5300 series is widely considered Apple's worst product of the 1995-1996 time period where the company teetered on the brink of death. In its 5300ce incarnation with a TFT of 800x600 pixels, a 117 MHz PPC, 32 MB on-board RAM and hot-swappable drive bay, the 5300ce was quite ahead of other laptop models at the time, but by far failed to meet the quality standard expected for the price. Many models shipped dead on arrival, and a few 5300's used at Apple actually burst into flames due to problems with then-new Lithium Ion batteries made by Sony (earning the 5300 the nickname "Hindenbook", after the Hindenburg disaster). While no consumer models suffered this fate, Apple was forced to recall the entire product line and delay its availability while they downgraded to proven nickel metal hydride batteries. Apple's much-publicized PowerBook 5300 product placement in the film Mission Impossible turned to disaster when the PowerBooks still hadn't arrived in stores when the movie premiered in theaters. After Apple offered an Extended Repair Program, the series turned into a remarkably attractive machine, but never lost its reputation.
Apple had no presence in the portables market prior to 1992
Where's the historical perspective? It may come as a surprise to some, but Apple actually made computers *before* the Macintosh. The Apple IIc was compact and roughly portable; although i couldn't tell you for sure (i was a C64 hacker at the time) we all assumed the Apple IIc was a portable because we see it being used on a beach in the movie "2010". Although looking back now, one has to wonder where the battery is in that compact little case.
Honestly, I still miss the trackballs of the 1xx Powerbooks, as well as the recessed trackballs of the Duos.
They had the best ergonomic experience of any laptop pointing devices ever. The size and mass of the ball, the position of the buttons...Just outstanding.
I can deal with the dim screen. I suppose I could even get used to the track pad, versus the pencil eraser thing I prefer now. But until they put TWO BUTTONS on the PowerBooks, the editors, artists, and poets can keep 'em. Common Apple -- you released a two button mouse... now fix the laptops!
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
Why is this such a problem? 99% of the time a single normal click is all that is required. The rare times you need an alternate click its an easy outstretch finger in addition to the normal click and can easily be done with one hand. The wear on my trackpad button is actually most prominent just to the right of centre. If there were two buttons there of equal size I'd be contorting my (right) hand into a less natural position, so I prefer the single button. That, and any OS/app that needs to use the right button a lot is not designed properly.
It's funny you should say that. I've read this opinion a few times on slashdot of late. Yet here I am with my 17" Powerbook and the brightness setting is just over halfway. This means the 'book has almost twice the brightness I need. If other brand notebooks make the PB look dim I guess I'd have to wear sunglasses to use those!
...They were shown in 1991 at WWDC. I was there.
The presentation was actually very well done, I thought--almost as good as a SteveNote. Back then, without Steve Jobs and his ego, essentially every group (desktop hardware, imaging, system software, etc.) gave a keynote on a different subject. Sculley gave the Monday keynote where he usually talked about the business side. Pretty boring stuff and Sculley wasn't that great a speaker anyway. Hell, even Bill Gates did a better presentation than Sculley (he was also there).
So we got this keynote from some VP of "Portable Computing." He started off talking about the Macintosh Portable and how they had finally identified the market for this device.
Cut to a shot of the space shuttle taking off.
Yup. The Macintosh Portable was the first personal computer in space (and I can hear the HP41c fans sharpening their knives). They showed it floating around the cabin of the shuttle, as light as a feather. They even showed something that everyone had wanted to see since the first Macintosh: A disk being ejected across the room.
Amusing.
The VP then showed off Apple Remote Access. One odd thing about his presentation, though, was that the computer he was using had no video-out. Thus, there was a guy standing behind him with a portable camera zoomed in on the screen. But if you paid attention--and I didn't until somebody mentioned it after the presentation--you could see the the edges around the screen were dark and a Macintosh Portable was sort of a light Macintosh SE grey. So ARA was being demoed on a PowerBook--we just couldn't see the whole thing.
Anyway, they were finally ready to unveil the replacement for the Macintosh Portable. They wheeled this table out onto the stage with a cloth covering a device. The VP whipped off the cloth to show us: A LaserWriter. Various chuckles from the audience. "Well, it's pretty portable..." the VP quipped as he tried to lift the LaserWriter (Apple LaserWriters weighed about 50 pounds). Suddenly, a disembodied voice from the booth called out: "Look in the paper tray." The VP reached into the paper tray and pulled out a PowerBook! And the audience went wild.
Definitely one of the better Apple presentations.
Visit an Apple store and check out the lastest Powerbooks, as they've just updated the screens. I'm typing this on a new 15" Powerbook with a widescreen resolution of 1440x920 and it's absolutely gorgeous.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
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.
It's not just a question of preference: in general, the center mounted trackball under the space bar tests out well in usability tests, better than side-mounted trackballs or trackpads.
There may have been specific problems on specific laptop models, but in general, it's a good design.
(The decision to go with trackpads was probably motivated not by usability, but by cost, styling, and size: trackpads are cheap, trouble-free, don't break the line of the design, and don't require much space inside the case.)
The center-mounted trackball necessitated the same terrible hand contortions you're familiar with due to notebook touchpads.
If the trackball is right under the spacebar, you don't contort your hands at all, you just move them down a little. Some of them are designed to be used with thumbs, others, with your index fingers, and some can be used either way. If you try to use one of those pointing devices in a way different from the way it was intended to be used, the result may have been frustrating, however.
Of course, the Outbound, a Mac clone that used semi-legal SE ROM chips, was the first true Mac laptop...or something to that effect. I LOVED mine, and their customer support was the absolute BEST...which may explain why they're now kaput.
http://www.jagshouse.com/outbound.html
and
http://www.lowendmac.com/clones/outbound.html
I've seen a lot of people with touchpad only laptops always carry around real mice because the touchpad just isn't suitable for anything more than a few seconds of use, but that really hurts the portability of the laptop. Then you need to carry the mouse with you and hope that you have a flat surface to use it on.
Nipple, snipple. I guess your a little offtopic because PowerBooks don't and never had nipples, but rather touchpads.
I'm typing this on a PowerBook right now. I'm lying on my couch on my back with the PowerBook on my groin area insulated by a blanky (plus its a little cold in my house). I'm using the touchpad now and well over 99% of the time that I use my PowerBook at home. The reason, portability. At work, I take my power cord, my computer, and my 3 button schroolwheel mouse and plug them all in.
I thought I would never say this, but I have gotten used to the one button thing on Macs. Why? Because there are so many click modifiers (shift, control, Command/Apple/or Meta if you prefer), that a second button (usually control) is only one of those, and hitting the control button is no different than hitting a second mouse button. I was helping a friend with a "PC" laptop with two buttons the other day on his touchpad, and I found it difficult to use. I guess I have been successfully brainwashed, but maybe my brain needed washing.
My biggest beef with a touchpad, is not general mousing around, its doing things like DND or selecting text or anything that is working with graphics like painting or drawing.
However, for general use like surfing the web, and doing general point and click things, a touchpad is fine. If I need more control, or am going to be using the mouse extensively, its very worthwhile to grab the mouse out of my bag and use it. Like I said, I rarely use it at home. I have only used it when working with X, because the 3 buttons come in handy there and for playing some silly flash game that was controlled with the mouse.
You're right--mea culpa.
The first e-mail from space was sent from a Macintosh Portable, but it was not the first "portable computer" in space.
My mistake.
Thinking about this also reminded me of another funny Portable/PowerBook story. A friend of mine's sister went out and bought a Macintosh Portable after seeing the PowerBooks. She preferred the Portable because, living in New York City, she wanted a heavy machine that would be less easy to steal. She'd had her purse snatched once or twice and could see someone coming up, giving her a shove and running off with this nice and light PowerBook.
No one was going "run" while lugging a 25 pound Macintosh Portable.
(I had this great mental image of some guy running up, shoving her, grabbing the portable and--wham!--he's stuck in one place like he was attached to an anchor.)