The 30th Anniversary of Osborne Computer 81
harrymcc writes "This Sunday is the thirtieth anniversary of the announcement of the Osborne 1 — the first mass-produced mobile computer. For years, Osborne has been most famous for its failure, traditionally blamed on the company having preannounced new products before they were available. But that's not the whole story — and Adam Osborne, its founder, was a fascinating figure who deserves to be remembered."
I own one (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, to be precise, I own the 2nd model - the "Osborne Executive" with the slightly larger, amber monitor.
The old girl still fires up, I found the system software years before I came across the computer itself. Totally impractical and useless but I still enjoy firing up Zork on it to impress my fellow geeks.
Adam Osborne.... fascinating? No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Look it's great to be nostalgic.
Adam Osborne named the company and the computer after himself.
It barely ran, weighed lots, and had no capacity to do anything useful. A TRS-80 Model II was more powerful. Kaypro (mentioned by a previous poster) also was good. Sadly it was a big heavy suitcase that barely fit "under the seat in front of you". Oh, and it sucked.
I'm sorry Adam Osborne had a great idea that was not technologically feasible for another 10 years. In today's era he'd have patented the concept and a NPE would be holding the rights to it and suing the likes of Dell, Acer, and every other dog with a portable. "Method by which the computer can be operated without mains(sic) power." lol. But he didn't. He did nothing fascinating. He is not a fascinating guy. He's a guy who had an idea (that lots of us have) and the tech wasn't there to perform as he expected.
Revisionism is cute... but deifying someone who accomplished nothing extraordinary and somehow making it like there's some "fascination" with the guy... that's going a bit far.
I find shiny object and helicopters fascinating. I don't expect a tell-all book anytime soon.
Mods, mod something else.
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