John Ellenby, a British-born computer engineer who played a critical role in paving the way for the laptop computer, died on Aug. 17 in San Francisco. He was 75. His son Thomas confirmed the death but said the cause had not been determined.
Mr. Ellenby's pioneering work came to fruition in the early 1980s, after he founded Grid Systems, a company in Mountain View, Calif. As chief executive, he assembled an engineering and design team that included the noted British-born industrial designer William Moggridge. The team produced a clamshell computer with an orange electroluminescent flat-panel display that was introduced as the Compass. It went to market in 1982. The Compass is now widely acknowledged to have been far ahead of its time. "The Grid Compass was the first successful clamshell laptop computer," said Marc Weber, a historian at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
It went on to become a valuable tool for big corporations, government spies, White House and Pentagon officials, and even astronauts, surviving the midair explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in which seven people died. The Compass came with advanced, and expensive, data storage capacity called bubble memory and was accordingly pricey, originally selling for $8,150 ($20,325 today). As a result, it found an enthusiastic market not with consumers but rather in Washington.
[...] In his later years, Mr. Ellenby would reflect on what a huge technical challenge the idea of a portable computer had presented a half-century ago. In an interview, he once related that the inspiration for it came on a visit to the White House. There, he met an official who said he wanted a machine that would include everything that was in a standard business personal computer but that would fit in half the briefcase that Mr. Ellenby was carrying with him at the time. As Mr. Ellenby recalled, "I said: 'This briefcase? That's hard!'"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:25AM
More like desktops that you could carry from one desk to another. Too heavy to hold in your lap for any length of time. At that price point, you sure didn't want to drop it.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 29 2016, @07:04PM
> Too heavy to hold in your lap for any length of time
You wouldn't want to, since that required moving quickly your chair in front of the outlet anyway
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:26AM
I had never seen a GRiD Compass. It makes my Osborne 1 look huge and clumsy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:28AM
I'm envious because I've never seen a pussy but girls get to finger theirs all night!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:28AM
Meanwhile you're just dicking around...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:01AM
8k could buy you a decent car in the 80s. Although 80s and "decent car" seem dissonant - a former Ford family member speaking here.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:12AM
Yes, I am a child of the 80s, and my mom bought a Honda for $6k. No home computer for me. Computers were for rockstars in those days. Literally [folklore.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:51AM
Some micros in those days were more affordable: the ZX Spectrum, Atari 800, BBC Micro, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Sharp Pocket Computer and TI-99/4 for instance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:58AM
I had an Apple II clone. Those were cheaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#Clones [wikipedia.org]
But they weren't clamshell laptops.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:03AM
ZX Spectrum, Atari 800, BBC Micro, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Sharp Pocket Computer and TI-99/4
My mom called those "glorified calculators."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:25AM
Your mom was pretty sharp.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ilPapa on Monday August 29 2016, @04:14AM
I had an '83 RX7 and it was a lot more than decent.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:02PM
Look, he said "former Ford family member" -- teasing is one thing, but you're just being mean. :-)
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday August 29 2016, @07:56PM
Yeah, had (and still have) an '81 Porsche. Still gives a thrill and a smile. I think the 80s had some amazing cars, especially the Turbo period in the mid-late 80s. When we had all the power of later cars, but none of the environmental and safety regulations that stifle modern cars looks, performance and quality.
And the Group B Rallies.... *sigh*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:59AM
The portable TRS-80 Model 100, which came out a year later, was about $1,200.