Brief History of the Laptop Computer
| From whom did the idea come from to develop a laptop computer? This is a difficult question to answer conclusively, however
there can be little doubt that the world of laptops owes a great deal to computer genius Alan Kay. Kay thought of a small PC which he named the
Dynabook which would have wireless network capabilities,
outstanding color graphics and ample computing power. Mr Kay persuaded the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center to fund a team to work on his idea. Soon he had developed a prototype called "the Alto", which had bitmapped display, mouse and network connectivity and which some consider to be the template for the modern workstation. He also decided that it needed software to make it all usable. Since then many manufacturers such as Compaq, Dell, Sony and Toshiba have built upon Alan Kay's original concept and developed laptop computers to a higher level of performance. Today's cheap laptops and notebooks are much faster, lighter, and generally far more sophisticated than their older 70s, 80's and 90's siblings. Certainly 21st century notebooks are closer to Kay's original Dynabook concept. |