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The 30th Anniversary of Osborne Computer
harrymcc writes "This Sunday is the thirtieth anniversary of the announcement of the Osborne 1 — the first mass-produced mobile computer. For years, Osborne has been most famous for its failure, traditionally blamed on the company having preannounced new products before they were available. But that's not the whole story — and Adam Osborne, its founder, was a fascinating figure who deserves to be remembered."
What's really scary is that I remember it!
No, that's just mildly depressing. Scary is when you have an old receipt for one but you don't remember it.
Blank until
Back in 1981, I was programming for a company with a 64K CPM computer with a Hazeltine monitor. Life was great.
And this book writer Adam Osborne, whose motto was "Just good enough", started selling his barely luggable CPM computer with two 5.25 floppy drives and a five inch monitor for something less than two thousand dollars.
I actually though about buying one of these. Shudder!
A dingo ate my sig...
The 9" screen on the KayPro was a dream to use. Really sharp and easy on the eyes. Much better than the Hercules on PCs, and compared to it, CGA was worse than bush league.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Well, to be precise, I own the 2nd model - the "Osborne Executive" with the slightly larger, amber monitor.
The old girl still fires up, I found the system software years before I came across the computer itself. Totally impractical and useless but I still enjoy firing up Zork on it to impress my fellow geeks.
Look it's great to be nostalgic.
Adam Osborne named the company and the computer after himself.
It barely ran, weighed lots, and had no capacity to do anything useful. A TRS-80 Model II was more powerful. Kaypro (mentioned by a previous poster) also was good. Sadly it was a big heavy suitcase that barely fit "under the seat in front of you". Oh, and it sucked.
I'm sorry Adam Osborne had a great idea that was not technologically feasible for another 10 years. In today's era he'd have patented the concept and a NPE would be holding the rights to it and suing the likes of Dell, Acer, and every other dog with a portable. "Method by which the computer can be operated without mains(sic) power." lol. But he didn't. He did nothing fascinating. He is not a fascinating guy. He's a guy who had an idea (that lots of us have) and the tech wasn't there to perform as he expected.
Revisionism is cute... but deifying someone who accomplished nothing extraordinary and somehow making it like there's some "fascination" with the guy... that's going a bit far.
I find shiny object and helicopters fascinating. I don't expect a tell-all book anytime soon.
Mods, mod something else.
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The hardware wasn't anything special. It was okay, and just barely managed to pull off a 'first', and was quickly superseded by better computers in that fast-moving time.
What was really interesting about the first Ossy was you got nearly all the big CP/M apps bundled with the computer -- for what was really a fair price for the computer OR those apps. It was a 2 for 1 deal, and I think that was probably the swiftest maneuver Adam Osborne did.
Disclaimer: I've got an Ossy in the closet, with an equal weight of manuals and floppies. It's also the only computer I've ever bought that came with complete wiring diagrams. Fun kit.
Apropos of that, see http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Tell_Adam_Hes_An_Asshole.txt&showcomments=1#comments
Jobs was a bit of a dick but, he was mostly right...
I bought an Apple ][+
Now that woz a good computer
Back in 1981, I was programming for a company with a 64K CPM computer with a Hazeltine monitor. Life was great.
64K in 1981? Holy crap, that was the hotness!
Not especially. The basic model IBM PC, launched that year, had 64k expandable to 256. The Apple IIe had launched 2 years earlier with 48k. 64k was probably about average at the time for a proper micro (i.e. not a "home" computer).
Wasn't the 68000 also considered for the CPU? Then, it may not have sucked shit (then again, the rest of the system architecture sucked shit), and it probably would've sold shit, too.
>The basic model IBM PC, launched that year, had 64k expandable to 256
Nope. The first version of the IBM PC had a motherboard that came with 16k expandable to 64k. See e,g. http://computermuseum.usask.ca/articles/IBM-5150-Specifications.pdf
A revised motherboard used denser chips that allowed for 64k base, expandable to 256k. You could also get adapter boards that would take you to 512k and even 640k (which at the time was all you'd ever need according to a certain visionary of the era.)
My dad had one of these, and when I went off to MSU in 1983, it became mine. With Wordstar, huge electric typewriter with a centronics interface that was the printer, and a 9 inch external monochrome monitor and I was hooked up.
My girlfriend wrote a paper on it, forgot to or didn't know to save to the second floppy and lost it. She might have been the among the first college students in the world to suffer this fate.
The alternative to limited government is unlimited government.