[inforoots] Comments on the laptop / Grid thread

['Computer Collector Newsletter']

...Just realized that my replies weren't posting because I sent them from
the wrong email address.  So if they come through in the future from
evan947 at yahoo.com, please ignore them.

Anyway, here are some thoughts.

- Here's a round-up of small computers from January 1984 (by Creative
Computing founder David Ahl) which includes the terms "notebook" and
"portable" but not "laptop"... Interesting since Gavilan supposedly tried to
coin the phrase "laptop" a year earlier:
http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v10n1/38_14_notebook_computers_in_.ph
p

- Someone else mentioned Manny Fernandez.  I've been trying to reach him for
over a year via his company SI Ventures but no one there ever answers the
phone or returns my messages.  Anyone here have some insight on reaching
him?  I really, really, really want to document the history of Gavilan.

- Speaking of which, I have a Gavilan and a Grid 1101 in my personal
collection.  I need to work on the Gavilan but the Grid 1101 works fine and
I have the manuals too.  So if anyone visits northern NJ or the NYC region
in general, just email me and I'll be happy to meet up for a demo.

- RE: Jeff Hawkins.  I interviewed him last year and he said his main
influence was the Sony Palmtop (circa 1990/1991) which was only sold in
Japan.  I think the exact model was the PTC-300.  (PTC stood for "Palm Top
Computer")... Check out my history-of-PDAs web site here for more background
on this: http://www.snarc.net/pda/pda-treatise.htm (I'll be updating that
soon, but the current version is still accurate.)

RE: the ENIAC thread: Another great book, sympathetic to Eckert and
Mauchly's side, is "ENIAC: The triumphs and tragedies of the world's first
computer" by Scott McCartney ... cleary it wasn't "the world's first
computer" but the book is still very good.

- Evan

-----------------------------------------
Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net

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