Slashdot Mirror
The Laptop Celebrates Its 40th Year
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.'"
It was never built?? Not 40 then...
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.
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.