History of portable computers
As a special addition to my history of portable computers, I’ve added a tribute to Volker Dolch – who was an inspiration to many!
VOLKER Dolch Rugged Portable Pioneer Life History|
Year |
Model |
Other Events |
|
1977 |
TRS-80 | Voyager I & II are launched Voyager 2 launched 1st! |
|
1978 |
IBM Portable 5155 | First Garfield Comic published |
|
1979 |
Sony Walkman TPS-L2 introduced. Space Invaders hits the arcades (launched in Japan 1978) | |
|
1980 |
Sharp PC-1211 TRS-80 Pocket Computer | 1st Rubik’s cube exported from Hungary |
|
1981 |
Osborne 1 | 1st flight of Space shuttle Columbia |
|
1982 |
Grid Compass 1101 | Tron the movie. The first time |
|
1983 |
TRS-80 Model 100Kookaburra PC | Apple Lisa intoduces mice, GUI and “undo last change” to the masses |
|
1984 |
IBM portable PC 5510 | Neuromancer by William Gibson coins the term “Cyberspace” |
|
1985 |
Osborne Vixen | Commodore Amiga launched |
|
1986 |
IBM Convertible PC | Pixar annimation studios is opened |
|
1987 |
Compaq portable-III | World population reaches 5 Billion |
|
1988 |
Compaq SLT/286 | Al Qaeda is formed by Osama bin Laden |
|
1989 |
Apple Macintosh Portable | First commercial dial-up Internet connection in North America is made, by The World STD |
|
1990 |
Poquet PC | Tim Berners-Lee & Robert Cailliau propose “hypertext” and the WWW is born. Windows 3.0 released, Microsoft becomes first corp to exceed $1B in sales |
|
1991 |
Kontron IP-Lite | Zero base’ by Sega introduces the World to “All your base are belong to us“ |
|
1992 |
IBM Thinkpad | Windows 3.1 released. First live streaming by the band “Severe Tyre Damage” |
|
1993 |
Apple Newton | 50th www server goes live, Doom is released |
|
1994 |
Fieldworks FW7500 | Yahoo formed by Jerry Yang and David Filo, Al Gore invents the information superhighway, Netscape founded |
|
1995 |
Kontron INLite Getac A320 | eBay launched, Amazon launched |
|
1996 |
Panasonic Toughbook CF25 | IBM Deep blue beats Gary Kasparov |
|
1997 |
Psion Series 5 | Sergei & Larry rename “BackRub” to “Google” |
|
1998 |
PayPal founded | |
|
1999 |
@Home buys Excite for $6.7 billion USD | |
|
2000 |
Dolch FlexPAC | Amazingly Windows 2000 is released |
|
2001 |
Wikipedia is founded | |
|
2002 |
Excite@Home, one of the largest ISP’s files for bankruptcy and closes its doors March 2002. | |
|
2003 |
Space shuttle Columbia explodes during re-entry | |
|
2004 |
MySpace launches, ‘The Facebook’ launches | |
|
2005 |
YouTube launches. Kontron buys Dolch | |
|
2006 |
iTronix Gobook XR1Panasonic Toughbook CF19 | Gary’s mod is made available on Steam (this one for my Son). YouTube bought by Google for $1.65B |
|
2007 |
Tumblr is launched (this one for my daughter) Kontron sells rugged portable business to Azonix | |
|
2008 |
Getac B300 | Intel i7 launched; XM & Sirius satelite radio companies merge |
|
2009 |
Zynga launches Farmville | |
|
2010 |
Oracle buys Sun Microsystems | |
|
2011 |
AGS-MRPC-4 | Steve Jobs passes away |
|
2012 |
Getac Z710 | Gangnam Style. Hurricane Sandy. #SOPA |
|
2013 |
AGS-MilPAC-III Getac X500 | Yahoo buys Tumblr |
|
2014 |
AGS-RMDDU-23 | Slack.com launches |
| AGS-MegaPAC-L2 | Windows 10 Launched | |
|
2016 |
Getac V-100 | Galaxy Note 7’s start exploding |
|
2016 |
AGS-MegaPAC-i9 | Intel i9 CPU launched |