The Amazing Path to the Lightest Laptop

Do you realize how amazing today’s laptops and other portable computing devices are?  When they first began, they looked completely different. They were heavy and clunky, and the screen was very small. Compare those to today’s laptops and you’ll realize what an incredible journey laptops went through.

A hundred years ago, electronic computers did not exist.  60 years ago, computers were mainly confined to large mainframes made by IBM. 50 years ago minicomputers, which could only be called mini when compared to mainframes, were just starting to be devised. It was almost forty years ago that portable computers started to exist.

In 1968, Alan Kay, one of the pioneers of computing, had a concept. It was a computer unlike anything at that time. It was handheld, lightweight, tablet-like and it had a screen and a keyboard. It was the first concept of a laptop. He called it a Dynabook.

The Dynabook concept did not materialize immediately. The hardware simply did not exist yet. But the idea of a portable computer lingered. IBM produced the first portable computer. You couldn’t really call it a laptop. It weighed 50 lbs! No one could possibly mistake this as the lightest laptop. Minicomputers weighed less. It was called the IBM 5100 and it was announced in 1975. It also cost $20,000. Unlike any laptop today, none of its parts flipped.

The Osborne 1 was released in 1981. Thankfully, it had half the weight of the IBM 5100. More importantly, it cost less than a fifth of the 5100 at $1,795. At 5 inches, the screen was barely larger than the screen on an iPhone. It could be flipped open but on its vertical axis. Many consider the Osborne the first true laptop.

Others contend that the honor of the first laptop should be given to the Gavilan SC, was released in 1983. Its form is far more familiar. You flipped it up in order to reveal the screen.  It weighed significantly less at 14 lbs. It also ran MS-DOS, the precursor to the Windows operating system.

Many copied and improved upon the Gavilan SCs basic design. IBM, Zenith, Apple, among others produced those lightweight laptops or portables. In 1991, Apple had a different idea for the laptop form. The company released the Powerbook 100. It took advantage of new screens and battery tech. The keyboard was pushed back and before it laid the palm rest and the trackball. In other words, it looks like every laptop designed today. It weighed 5.1 lbs.

The next laptop vision occurred in the year 2000. Microsoft provided a concept for tablet PCs. It took its design from the Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) of the late 90s. It was a laptop that could also receive handwritten input. Some of the concepts looked like large PDAs. But the most enduring design was a laptop that had a monitor that could be twisted into a tablet form in order to use a stylus to write on it. There was no real lessening of laptop weight during this time.

In 2005, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative was announced. Its goal was to give laptops to needy children in order to help their education. It had to be cheap and it had to be manufactured in massive quantities. They managed to make it cheap by using less materials. In other words, they designed a laptop to be as small as can be. They released the XO-1 in 2006. It was a tiny laptop. It had a 7-½ inch screen and it weighed 3.5 lbs. The XO-1 spawned many other inexpensive tiny laptops aka netbooks.

While the netbooks made laptops smaller, lighter and cheaper, Apple created another trend with the release of the Macbook Air in 2008. Their laptop was priced at the premium but it was very thin and lighter than any other laptop. It had an 13-inch screen and it weighed 3 lbs. Other premium manufacturers followed Apple into the ultrathin and lightweight laptop space.

As technology marches on, we can expect lighter laptops to appear or take new forms. Small portable computers can now be found in today’s smartphones. With the release of the Apple iPad, the tablet pc and Dynabook concept was revived.  Computing becomes lighter and lighter.

What is the lightest laptop today? Read on to find out.