Osborne 1

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An opened Osborne 1 computer, ready for use. The keyboard sits on the inside of the lid.

The Osborne 1 was the first commercially available portable "all-in-one" microcomputer, released in April, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 23.5 pounds (12 kg), cost US$1795, and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. Its principal deficiencies were a tiny 5 inch (13 cm) display screen and single sided, single density floppy disk drives whose disks could not contain sufficient data for practical business applications. Its design owed much to that of the Xerox NoteTaker, a prototype developed at Xerox PARC in 1976.

[edit] Software and hardware details

Besides being the first available portable computer, the Osborne 1 was also the first computer that "bundled" software; the included WordStar wordprocessor, SuperCalc spreadsheet, and the CBASIC and MBASIC programming languages—all software packages that were the leading applications in their respective niches at the time—had a retail value of more than $2,000. With the bundled MBASIC it was possible to run the Colossal Cave Adventure (abbrev CCA) the very first Adventure Game ever written for a microcomputer.

ADVENT (Colossal_Cave_Adventure) running on an Osborne Computer circa 1982

Hardware features:

Dual 5¼-inch floppy disk drives
4 MHz Z80 CPU
65 kilobytes main memory
Fold-down keyboard doubling as the computer case's lid
5-inch, 52 character × 24 line monochrome CRT display
Parallel printer port
Serial port for use with external modems or serial printers

[edit] Market life

At its peak, Osborne Computer Corporation shipped 10,000 Osborne 1 units per month. The computer was widely imitated as several other computer companies started offering low-priced portable computers with bundled software. Compared to smaller and lighter laptop portable computers manufactured later, the luggage size Osborne 1 may be more accurately described as a luggable or transportable computer. The Osborne's popularity was surpassed by the similar Kaypro II which had a much more practical 9 inch (23 cm) CRT that could display the standard 80 characters on 24 lines as well as double density floppies that could store twice as much data.

Osborne Computer Corporation was unable to effectively respond to the Kaypro challenge until after the market window had closed and the day of the 8-bit, CP/M-based computer had ended. Sales of the Osborne 1 were also hurt by the premature announcement of superior successor machines (See Osborne effect). Later Compaq broke through with a portable computer (the Compaq Portable) with a 9 inch CRT, that was software compatible with the IBM PC (the Compaq was the first PC clone).