A computer in every hand

Adam Osborne paved the way with the Osborne 1 -- the first portable PC.

By David Pescovitz

Jul 17, 1999 | "The best way to predict the future is to invent it," computer pioneer Alan Kay once said, but he was not the only technology trailblazer heeding that call at the dawn of the digital revolution.

"The future lies in designing and selling computers that people don't realize are computers at all," Adam Osborne told Time magazine at the beginning of 1983. That year the computer had knocked out all human contenders and was named "Machine of the Year." PCs, analysts predicted, would soon be in every home. But Osborne wanted them to be in every hand. And with his Osborne 1, the first portable computer, having done $70 million in sales the previous year, he seemed to be on the right path.

Portability is subjective. A Walkman is portable because it fits in your pocket. A massive boom box is portable too, sometimes just because it has a handle. The Osborne 1, at 24 pounds, wasn't compact, but its sewing machine-size case and, yes, handle, made it portable. It was to be an indispensable accessory for the first-generation high-tech road warrior. Rugged as a Samsonite suitcase, with a removable top that contained the keyboard, the Osborne could be stowed (theoretically) under an airline seat. Its 8-bit microprocessor crunched numbers in SuperCalc and processed words with WordStar. And at $1,795, half the price of a comparable Apple II, it sold itself with the pitch that you were paying for the software and getting the computer for free. The Osborne 1 was big and bulky, but broke the chains tying computer users to their desks. When the computer first went on sale in April 1981, mobile professionals were first in line, along with attorneys whose "briefs can be recalled on the (battery-powered) screen for a quick read" in the courtroom, Time reported.

"I liken myself to Henry Ford and the auto industry," Osborne told the New York Times, and anyone else who would listen. "I give you 90 percent of what most people need."

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Adam Osborne wasn't bred a businessman. Born in 1939 in Thailand to British parents -- his father taught Eastern religion and philosophy -- Osborne moved to the U.K. as an adolescent and eventually got a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Birmingham University. After relocating to the United States, he completed a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Delaware and quickly landed a job with California-based Shell Oil. Like many creative minds, Osborne didn't settle well into life as a small cog in a vast corporate culture. His strong-mindedness -- what Osborne himself has described as brashness -- simply didn't sit well at Shell.

So he took the computer skills he developed while mathematically modeling chemical reactions for Shell and became a full-fledged programmer. For six months, Osborne searched for work while the industry-wide recession was literally driving jobless programmers to suicide. Yearning to be in the computer business, and having observed firsthand the sub-par quality of most technical manuals, Osborne established himself as a technical writer while continuing to program on the side. Encouraged by the lack of competition at the time, Osborne also penned "An Introduction to Microcomputers," which he published himself, hawking it at user-group meetings. In 1975, IMSAI, an established computer company, happened upon the text and started to throw in a copy with every computer sold. Osborne Books was born, and its founder began writing the critically acclaimed industry-analyst column "From the Fountainhead" for Interface Age and later for InfoWorld. In 1979, McGraw-Hill bought the successful book company, and with $250,000 in his pocket, Osborne decided to try his hand at solving some of the usability and affordability hurdles he'd been slinging ink about.

Next Page: The Osborne 1 was the Volkswagen Beetle of computers

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