First Laptop (osborne 1)

Osborne 1 by the osborne computer corporation, the osborne 1 is considered to be the first true portable computer. It even has an optional battery pack, so it doesn't have to plugged into the 110VAC outlet for power.

The osborne 1 was the brainchild of adam osborne in 1981, he wanted a computer with a built-in screen that could fit under an airplane seat, and the Osborne just met those criteria in 1981, albeit via a rather small 5-inch CRT. The screen displayed 52 characters, but could be shifted left/right to display longer lines of text. The Osborne was introduced at the West Coast Computer Faire in April 1981, and was also notable for being the first machine to come bundled with a suite of software that included BASIC, WordStar, and SuperCalc. The unit retailed for $1795 and had brisk sales of about 10,000 machines a month.

The Osborne was designed with transportation in mind - it had to be rugged and able to survive being moved about. That's one reason that the screen is so small - a larger and heavier screen would be more susceptable to damage.

The two pockets beneath the floppy drives work great for floppy disk storage, although the Osborne modem also fits perfectly in the the left pocket and plugs into the front-mounted "modem" port.

Designed as a true portable computer system - it can be considered airline carry-on luggage, and it will fit under the passenger seat of any commercial airliner.

Available options include the Osborne DATACOM modem.
# The Osborne modem and COMM-PAC software gives you access to more than 200 electronic bulletin boards across the country (well, in 1982, that is).
# Data transfer rate is 300 baud.
# The modem fits in the diskette pocket below floppy drive A.
# It fits in both the original "tan case" and the newer "blue case" Osborne (see below), but the diskette pocket in the "blue case" is smaller, so the eight alignment tabs must be 'carefully snapped off'.

# Also available is the Double-Density Disk Drive Option. This is an additional circuit board which must be installed inside the system. Doubles the amount of data storage per diskette.
# Recognizes these formats:
-- Osborne 1 single density - 92K per diskette
-- Osborne 1 double density - 182K per diskette
-- Xerox 820 single density - 82K per diskette
-- Cromemco single density - 80K per diskette
-- IBM Personal Computer (CP/M-86 format) - 156K per diskette
-- DEC VT-180 - 171K per diskette

In 1982, the Osborne Computer Company announced a successor, the Executive model OCC-2 (seen here to the right), with a larger screen and a cooling fan.

Shortly thereafter, they announced the next system, the Vixen, a portable running the CP/M operating system.

Unfortunately, potential customers stopped buying the Osborne 1, waiting for the Executive and the Vixen, which wasn't even ready to ship yet. Additionally, the new Kaypro II was now available with a larger screen for less money. Osborne sales plummeted and Osborne quickly ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy in September of 1983.

It probably wasn't the company's fault, since by this time most of the serious computer users were gravitating towards the new IBM PC, which had already been available since 1981.


Anything that wasn't IBM compatible was bound to fail. In 1983, the Compaq Portable came out - a portable computer similar to the Osborne, except that it was IBM compatible and ran MS-DOS. It was a great success.