Kaypro Corporation was an American home and personal computer manufacturer based in Solana Beach in the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems (NLS) to compete with the popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a line of rugged, "luggable" CP/M-based computers sold with an extensive software bundle which supplanted its competitors and quickly became one of the top-selling personal computer lines of the early 1980s.
Adam Osborne was a British author, software publisher, and computer designer who founded several companies in the United States and elsewhere. He introduced the Osborne 1, the first commercially successful portable computer.
The Osborne 1 is the first commercially successful portable computer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighs 24.5 lb (11.1 kg), cost US$1,795, and runs the CP/M 2.2 operating system. It is powered from a wall socket, as it has no on-board battery, but it is still classed as a portable device since it can be hand-carried when the keyboard is closed.
Otrona Advanced Systems Corporation was an early Colorado manufacturer of business portable CP/M and MS-DOS compatible computers.
A portable computer is a computer designed to be easily moved from one place to another, as opposed to those designed to remain stationary at a single location such as desktops and workstations. These computers usually include a display and keyboard that are directly connected to the main case, all sharing a single power plug together, much like later desktop computers called all-in-ones (AIO) that integrate the system's internal components into the same case as the display. In modern usage, a portable computer usually refers to a very light and compact personal computer such as a laptop, subnotebook or handheld PC, while touchscreen-based handheld ("palmtop") devices such as tablets, phablets and smartphones are called mobile devices instead.
Columbia Data Products, Inc. (CDP) is a company which produced the first legally reverse-engineered IBM PC clones. It faltered in that market after only a few years, and later reinvented itself as a software development company.
The Osborne Vixen is a "luggable" portable computer announced by the Osborne Computer Corporation in November 1984, as a follow-up to their Osborne 1 and Osborne Executive system.
Compaq's first computers' form factors were portable, also called "luggables", and then "lunchbox computers", and together constituted the Compaq Portable series. These computers measured approximately 16 inches (410 mm) deep, 8 inches (200 mm) tall, and approximately 20 inches (510 mm) wide. As the products evolved, laptops and notebooks were created offering a new level of portability that caused the market to explode.
The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon of customers canceling or deferring orders for the current, soon-to-be-obsolete product as an unexpected drawback of a company's announcing a future product prematurely. It is an example of cannibalization. The term alludes to the Osborne Computer Corporation, whose second product did not become available until more than a year after it was announced. The company's subsequent bankruptcy was widely blamed on reduced sales after the announcement.
The Compaq Portable is an early portable computer which was one of the first IBM PC compatible systems. It was Compaq Computer Corporation's first product, to be followed by others in the Compaq Portable series and later Compaq Deskpro series. It was not simply an 8088-CPU computer that ran a Microsoft DOS as a PC "work-alike", but contained a reverse-engineered BIOS, and a version of MS-DOS that was so similar to IBM's PC DOS that it ran nearly all its application software. The computer was also an early variation on the idea of an "all-in-one".
Osborne was the name of one of the largest and most successful computer wholesalers and resellers in Australia. Osborne Corporation in Australia was originally registered by President Computers founded by Tom Cooper, the name was transferred back to the US HQ founder Adam Osborne and his Osborne Computer Corporation, as a good will gesture by Cooper in the early stages of a highly successful launch of the Osborne 1 across the Australian marketplace. Adam Osborne at this time visited Sydney Australia at the invitation of Cooper to witness first hand the phenomenal success the Osborne 1 was experiencing in the Australian market.
The Osborne Executive, released in April 1983, was the successor to the Osborne 1 portable computer. Produced by the Osborne Computer Corporation, the Executive offered numerous improvements over the already successful Osborne 1, including a 7-inch amber phosphor CRT display and more space efficient half-height 5 ¼ disk drives.
Following the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer, or IBM PC, many other personal computer architectures became extinct within just a few years. It led to a wave of IBM PC compatible systems being released.
The history of laptops describes the efforts, begun in the 1970s, to build small, portable personal computers that combine the components, inputs, outputs and capabilities of a desktop computer in a small chassis.
MicroPro International Corporation was an American software company founded in 1978 in San Rafael, California. They are best known as the publisher of WordStar, a popular early word processor for personal computers.
Sorcim Corporation was an early start-up company in Silicon Valley, founded in June 1980 by Richard Frank, Paul McQuesten, Martin Herbach, Anil Lakhwara, and Steve Jasik - all former Control Data Corporation employees working in the Language Group in Sunnyvale, CA. Jasik left company early on, to develop the MacNosy product for the Macintosh.
Corona Data Systems, later renamed Cordata, was an American personal computer company. It was one of the earliest IBM PC compatible computer system companies. Manufacturing was primarily done by Daewoo of Korea, which became a major investor in the company and ultimately the owner.
The Osborne PC is an unreleased IBM PC–compatible personal computer developed between 1983 and 1984 by Osborne Computer Corporation. Only prototypes of the computer were ever produced.
The Zorba was a portable computer running the CP/M operating system manufactured in 1983 and 1984. It was originally manufactured by Telcon Industries, Inc., of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a company specialized in telecommunication equipment manufacturing.
The Dimension 68000 is a microcomputer introduced by the Micro Craft Corporation in 1983 that sought to emulate the Apple II, the IBM PC, and various CP/M-centric computers through a family of coprocessor expansion cards and emulation software. The Dimension 68000 can also run as a standalone computer based on the Motorola 68000 from which it gets its namesake. The computer is mostly the brainchild of Mike Carpenter, a former executive of a scientific instrument manufacturer who incorporated Micro Craft in Dallas, Texas, to develop the Dimension 68000. It had a market lifespan of three years and received mixed, mostly positive, reception from the technology press. Criticism was leveled at the $6,250 price tag for the computer with the full deck of coprocessor cards, as well as the extent of the emulation power of those cards.
