{"id":968,"date":"2025-02-27T01:56:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T01:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/?p=968"},"modified":"2025-02-27T01:56:48","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T01:56:48","slug":"these-15-vintage-pcs-shaped-the-way-we-think-about-laptops-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/2025\/02\/27\/these-15-vintage-pcs-shaped-the-way-we-think-about-laptops-today\/","title":{"rendered":"These 15 vintage PCs shaped the way we think about laptops today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This collection of computers, in part, has colored how we think about computers today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Though packed away in garages and basements or collecting dust on a bookshelf, the computers of decades past are often things we have trouble discarding. It’s not just that electronics reuse is so challenging because of the components, it’s also hard to part with the laptops of yesteryear because they hold so much sentimental value and act as artifacts of our recent past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I attended the Vintage Computer Festival in Orange, California, this month to try to figure out why old computers still have such appeal long after they become obsolete. There are now meetups in hotel ballrooms and convention centers across the country where people gather to share stories about old video games, swap repair tips, and yes, buy more old computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a visual pairing with her story, “From the basement to the festival: The enduring allure of vintage computers,” Nelius also captured photos of 15 machines pivotal to how we define a computer \u2014 laptop, desktop, tablet, phone, watch, glasses \u2014 today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AES Model 103:<\/strong>AES released the Lanier Model 103 \u201cNo Problem\u201d word processor in 1978 with an Intel 8080 CPU (the company\u2019s second 8-bit microprocessor), 32K of RAM, and dual 5.25-inch floppy disk drives. At the time, it cost $12,000, which would be nearly $61,000 in 2025. President Jimmy Carter used one of these PCs to write his memoir Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President<\/em> and found it \u201cmuch easier to compose on one than a typewriter,\u201d as he told the New York Times in 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Apple iBook G3: <\/strong>The G3 was Apple\u2019s first iBook. This model includes a PowerPC G3 CPU, an optical drive, standard USB, and Wi-Fi, and it is the first to use Apple\u2019s Unified Logic Board Architecture. Apple released it in 1999 for $1,599, about $3,050 today. Nicknamed \u201cthe clamshell,\u201d it was a far departure from laptop designs at the time, not just because it resembled a clam. Its casing was translucent and boldly colored on the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bondwell 2: <\/strong>Introduced by Bondwell in 1985, the Bondwell-2 was a netbook-sized laptop that used a CP\/M (Control Program\/Monitor) system with a 3.5-inch disk drive. Bondwell originally designed the CP\/M to load and run programs and organize files on 8- and 5.25-inch magnetic storage disks, so it was an unusual design choice to have it work with a more modern-sized floppy disk for the time. By 1985, MS-DOS and other operating systems had become more popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Laser PC4: <\/strong>This 1990 laptop shares several core features with today\u2019s smartphones and laptops. It could keep track of your appointments, store telephone numbers, create spreadsheets, spell check documents, and function as an alarm clock. There was an IBM and a Macintosh version, so if you had either one of those desktop computers at the time, you could easily export files from the PC4 \u2014 but if not, the laptop came with an optional conversion kit for IBM, Mac, and Apple II systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Commodore LCD: <\/strong>The empty space here commemorates a laptop that never was: the Commodore LCD. The company canceled its release plans after announcing it at CES 1985, so only a handful of prototypes were ever made. One of those prototypes is currently in the hands of Bill Herd, an engineer who designed the LCD and other Commodore systems. Had the LCD been released, it would have run the Commodore BASIC 3.6 OS on a Rockwell 65C102 with 32KB of RAM and 96KB of ROM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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HP 110 Portable: <\/strong>The HP Portable was a stand-out laptop in 1984. Its screen was four times the size of the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 (its major competitor), its 5MHz CPU was extremely fast, and its 256K of RAM was enormous for the time. Its battery also lasted 16 hours on a single charge. Creative Computing<\/em> voted the 110 Portable one of the best computers of 1984 for having \u201cnearly everything you could wish for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GTE XT300E Action Station: <\/strong>Before Bell Atlantic acquired GTE Corporation, it released a few unsuccessful business computers. One was the 1985 XT300E ActionStation. No one wanted it, even with a built-in modem, electronic telephone, 9-inch screen, speakerphone, email service, and online public database search capabilities. In addition to its $1,295 price tag (around $3,825 in 2025), it costs $15 per hour<\/em> to access CompuServe\u2019s online services. That\u2019s like paying $45 per hour today to access the Internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The rare Apple Bose: <\/strong>Released in 1997, Apple\u2019s Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM) commemorated the 20 years that had passed since Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne started Apple Computer. (Ironically, this was also the same year Steve Jobs returned to Apple after previously departing in 1985.) The limited-edition desktop PC featured a PowerPC 603ev CPU, ATI 3D RAGE II graphics, and a custom-made Bose sound system. At release, it cost an astonishing $7,500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Commodore PET 2001: <\/strong>The Commodore PET 2001 was the world\u2019s first personal computer, debuting at CES 1977. Starting at $795 (over $4,000 today), it was powered by a MOS 6502 microprocessor and could be configured with up to 32KB of RAM. The TTL monochrome monitor was built into the same chassis as the chiclet keyboard. The PET 2001 had an integrated dataset that used cassette tapes instead of floppy disk drives like its rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Grid Compass Computer 1101: <\/strong>When the first clamshell laptop, the Grid Compass Computer 1101, was released in 1982, it cost $8,150 \u2014 a couple of thousand dollars more than the average price of a car. This price was way out of most people’s budgets. However, its size and internal hardware made it the perfect computer for NASA, which first launched one into space in 1983 aboard the space shuttle Columbia. The custom GriD-OS was powered by an Intel 8086 CPU and used bubble (solid-state) memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Osborne 1: <\/strong>The Osborne 1 was released in 1981 and was the first commercially successful, \u201call-in-one\u201d portable computer\u2014even though it weighed nearly 25 pounds, had a 5-inch display, and looked like \u201ca cross between a World War II field radio and a shrunken instrument panel of a DC-3,\u201d as Time Magazine noted in 1982. Its CP\/M operating system was powered by a Zilog Z80 CPU, 64KB of RAM, and dual 5.25-inch floppy disk drives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ThinkPad 700C: <\/strong>IBM released its iconic ThinkPad 700\/700C in 1992. It was the first laptop to feature the TrackPoint, an integrated pointing stick that controls the mouse cursor. The ThinkPad is also known for its Japanese Bento Box design, which makes many of its internal components easily accessible for upgrades or repairs. Due to their popularity, they sold out quickly. Even President George H. W. Bush had a hard time buying one as a Christmas gift for his wife, Barbara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NEC 8401 A Starlet: <\/strong>Nicknamed \u201cStarlet,\u201d the NEC PC-8401A was a portable laptop released in 1985, the successor to the 8201 model. It was incredibly light for the time, weighing just 4.7 pounds, and came configured with 64K of RAM and 96K of ROM. The Starlet used the CP\/M operating system, but its storage drives had to be purchased separately. However, the laptop did come with a few preinstalled programs for word processing, creating spreadsheets, and connecting to your phone line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cambridge Z88: <\/strong>The Cambridge Z88 was first announced in the US during the 1987 COMDEX show in Las Vegas. Weighting just 2 pounds, it was one of (if not the<\/em>) smallest and lightest laptops that existed back then. It ran a proprietary operating system but had built-in programs for keeping track of appointments and important dates, combined software for word processing and making spreadsheets, and good printer driver compatibility \u2014 though you\u2019d need to alter the printer driver manually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Epson HX20: <\/strong>When it debuted at COMDEX in 1981, the Epson HX-20 started a new portable laptop trend: briefcase-sized, powerful, battery-operated devices. The HX-20 could last around 50 hours on a single charge, and if it sat idle for too long, it would turn off to conserve energy. As awesome as this laptop was, it didn’t achieve commercial success outside of Japan when it was released a year later. Radio Shack\u2019s TRS-80 Model 100 overshadowed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This collection of computers, in part, has colored how we think about computers today. Though packed away in garages and basements or collecting dust on a bookshelf, the computers of decades past are often things we have trouble discarding. It’s not just that electronics reuse is so challenging because of the components, it’s also hard … Continue reading These 15 vintage PCs shaped the way we think about laptops today<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-hp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batterymap.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}