Laptop

From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change

Laptop is a computer which is easy to carry around. Its user can fold the laptop up and be able to take it with him/her. The laptop was created mainly for this particular reason. In order to develop a laptop a computer technology was taken and then scaled to smaller size.

[change] History

The first portable computer was built on February 29, 1969. This is because the first laptop did not look the same as we know it today. It could not be folded. The first laptop was probably invented in 1969 by Bill Moggridge. The Briton developed his portable computer for Grid Systems Corporation.

His computer was five times lighter than any other computer used at that time. NASA used the laptop when it performed its shuttle program back in 1980s.

Historians, however, consider that the first laptop was created in 1981 and its name was Osborne 1. Its inventor was Adam Osborne who was also a former book publisher. He was the founder of Osborne Computer. His portable computer weighted 24 pounds.

The company spent 1,795 US dollars on creating the computer, which had a five inch screen and a special place for a modem and two devices for using a floppy disk. There were also several programs designed for the computer and a battery pack for providing energy. The computer, however, was not successful.

The same year saw the birth of another computer called Epson HX-20. It was a portable computer with a liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor. The computer also included a built-in printer. The whole device was battery powered.

One year later, in 1982, two computer designers from Microsoft, Kazuhiko Nishi and Bill Gates, started their discussion concerning a new portable computer. The main thing about the computer was a new LCD technology. The prototype of the new laptop was presented to Radio Shack.

The latter agreed to start the production of the computer. A year later the company launched its TRS-80 Model 100, which was a computer that looked pretty much like a laptop we know it today.

In 1986 the company created its improved version called TRS Model 200. The following two years saw the appearance of laptop PC from Compaq Computers and the first notebook style laptop from NEC called NEC UltraLite.

The year 1989 was quite successful for laptop producers. First there was Apple Computer that developed its first portable computer called Macintosh Portable the evolution of which turned it into Powerbook. Then the company named Zenith Data Systems introduced its Zenith MinisPort – a portable computer weighting 6 pounds. Finally there was Compaq Computer that designed its first laptop PC called Compaq LTE.

The development of laptops continued with various upgrades and additional functions added. Laptops have a lot of advantages like:

• People can carry them anywhere, whether office or home;
• The work area of a laptop is much smaller than an ordinary personal computer.

At the same time portable computers have several negative points like:

• Computer thefts became easier;
• While used in the car they can cause car accidents.
• They can break easier than desktop computers

[change] Portable market status

The enormous technology breakthrough during the past two decades has enabled us to build smaller and more powerful computers. We call these portable computers either notebooks or laptops. Both terms are used interchangeably today but during the evolutionary years the term >>notebook<< was often applied to the smallest units with the lowest weight.

Today our digital lives are all about mobility. The portable market has been growing sharply and it is estimated that this year (2007) vendors will sell around 264 million units(*). This huge number is actually 40 percent of the total 2007 PC market shipments. The predictions show that the portable market will outgrow desktop sales by 2010. This growth is understandable as it is much more convenient to buy a portable computer instead of a desktop sitting on your nice desk. Moreover, the prices of notebooks have declined and potential consumers can afford to buy the modern technology. This high demand for portable devices drives the industry forward enabling the developers to bring the new technology more quickly to the consumer.

The cheapest units that are sold today have a quick platform and everything a consumer needs including a sufficient LCD screen, a DVD burner, various types of network connections, a webcam and many input/output ports. When we look at the platform of the latest notebooks we can hardly see a place that could be improved. With dual core microprocessors running at high speeds with low voltage at 65 nanometer technology we can be more than happy with what we already have now. The chips usually sit on a high speed front side bus connected with the north bridge that manages communication with a few gigs of DDR2 memory, powerful discrete graphics and the south bridge. All this power that we can have packed in a small notebook is enough for a pleasant working experience. In my opinion the only big bottleneck of the available platforms is storage technology. This may sound weird to you as it is possible to have 2.5” portable hard disk drives with a capacity of at least 320GB not to think about the option of having a laptop with two hard disks. The problem doesn’t lie in the total capacity. The current storage technology based on storing data on rotating platters with magnetic surfaces is not ideal for portable computers. Conventional hard disks are already being replaced in the high end laptop market with SSD drives. Solid state drives do not have any moving parts and therefore are much more reliable. As well as the enormously important reliability we also gain much better access times and transfer speeds. This is vitally needed to make the performance of portable as well desktop computers better. I must also add the important fact of lower power consumption and no emitted sound. Thanks to no rotation and no movement there cannot be any sound. The majority of SSD drives uses nonvolatile flash memory (NAND, NAND gate) that is also used in the very famous Flash Disks. The only drawback of SSD drives is the currently available capacity and price. The price tag of the 64GB versions is way too high for us to afford. The prices will not stay high all the time and within a few months the prices are going to look different. Thanks to big investments in the semiconductor technology we are now producing silicon at 45 nanometers. This technology enables NAND chips with higher capacity on a smaller die and lower cost per chip. Thanks to the lower prices of the flash memory chips the prices of SSD drives will decline and the storage capacity will increase. Our near future looks very bright now. Apart from the certainty of solid state storage we can hopefully look forward to fuel cell batteries, OLED LCDs and a lot of other interesting innovations!

(*)iSuppli figures

[change] Other websites

• Laptop Categories - See the categories of laptops
• The Long Way of a Laptop - Find out more about the differences between a laptop and a desktop.
• BBC news