Grid Compass

The GRiD Compass 1100 was probably the first to be designated as a laptop computer and was introduced in April 1982 in the market.

The computer was designed by British industrial designer Bill Moggridge 1979. For this he was awarded on November 9, 2010, the Prince Philip Designers Prize. The housing consisting of a magnesium alloy. There were design features that can still be found today in modern portable computers; such as plain, black outer shell with rounded corners.

The computer included an Intel 8086 processor, a 320 × 240 -pixel Elektrolumiszenz display ( not CGA), 340 kilobytes magnetic bubble memory and a 1200 bit / s modem. Devices such as hard disks and floppy drives could be connected via a IEEE488-I/O-Interface (as GPIB or General Purpose Instrumentation Bus also known). The device weighed 5 kg.

The Grid Compass ran under GRiD - OS, a special operating system. This and the high price of 8,000 - $ 10,000 U.S. limited its sales figures and applications. The main customer was the U.S. government. NASA used it in the early 80 years, mainly due to its high for its time performance and low weight. The special military units acquired the computer to carry him in paratroopers in combat.

Together with the Gavilan SC and Sharp PC -5000 that came out the following year, the GRiD Compass has contributed much to the basic design of future laptop generations - even if the laptop concept took many elements from the Dynabook project, which in the late 1960s was developed by Xerox PARC. The manufacturer of the Compass 1100 GRiD Systems Corporation, was founded in 1988, bought by the Tandy Corporation, which operates under the name RadioShack today.

A better-known early form of the portable computer, the Osborne 1, which was due to his CP / M operating system adopted, although its appearance and its size inferior to the GRiD Compass.

Sources

• Portable computer