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The Laptop Celebrates Its 40th Year

Posted by kdawson on from the child's-play dept.

Wired has an interview with Alan Kay on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the idea of the laptop computer. Kay's vision, which he dubbed the "Dynabook," was for a 2-pound, 1-Mpixel color computing device. "... the Dynabook was never built. But it greatly inspired the devices we now call laptops, although it's taken four decades to slim the tech down to the point where usable computers actually weigh as little as two pounds. To honor his achievements, Mountain View's Computer History Museum on Wednesday will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the legendary Dynabook. [Quoting Kay:] 'The Amazon Kindle is kind of a subset of a Dynabook — too much of a subset. The screen is too small, it is not very capable of dynamics, the keyboard is poor, etc. But it does have several limited service ideas that are good. The next version of a Kindle could be really exciting.'"

4 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Doh, Vapourware by xsee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It was never built?? Not 40 then...

    1. Re:Doh, Vapourware by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah. Not to troll here, Xerox PARC came up with lots of neat ideas (the Star and all that, but they never actually SOLD anything to speak of. Real laptops (not luggables or lunchboxes) came in around circa 1987, things like the IBM laptop, and the Toshiba T1000 and that crazy black magnesium thing with the plasma display (what was it called? Grid or something). I used to draw crowds with my T1100+ with the 6 Mhz 8088, monochrome 40x80 LCD display and dual 720k floppies - damn near as powerful as any desktop in its day.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  2. Title again by clarkkent09 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In other news, Helicopter Celebrates its 500th Year! Bring out the cake, and thanks for giving us the helicopter Leonardo, what would we do without it for the last five centuries!

    This is not the anniversary of the laptop, it's the anniversary of the first known time someone made a drawing of something that roughly looks like a laptop (more like a tablet) on paper.

    Good job with the title yet again slashdot editors.

    --
    Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
  3. TRS-80 Model 100 was the first laptop by dtjohnson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The 'idea' of a laptop is not the same as an actual laptop that people can buy and use. The first laptop that people could really buy and use was the TRS-80 Model 100 introduced in 1983 which makes the laptop 25 years old.