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August 9, 2015

New York Times, December 8, 1985:

"For the most part, the portable computer is a dream machine for the few… On the whole, people don’t want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours they would rather spend reading the sports or business section of the newspaper. Somehow, the microcomputer industry has assumed that everyone would love to have a keyboard grafted on as an extension of their fingers. It just is not so." davidthompson: Not So

Posted by gerardvanderleun at August 9, 2015 1:36 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

I had been working with computers on my architecture job since 1979 and in 1985 I bought a Commodore which I connected to our 19" color TV. I bought it at, wait for it.....Toys R Us.....for $149. It had no hard drive at that point and I taught myself BASIC just so our 6 year old son could see his name flashing randomly in 16 different colors all over the screen. Soon, my wife taught him how to type and I taught him the basics of BASIC, then got out of his way. He's 36 now and has been a professional programmer for half his life and recently he told me he can still do BASIC from muscle memory.

Yes, he was home schooled.

Posted by: ghostsniper [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 9, 2015 6:10 PM

I bought a Toshiba 10-pounder somewhere in the late '80s for around $1500 as I recall. It had something like a 10" B&W LCD with no backlight, two 3.5"/360 floppy drives, and ran MSDOS 3.x at a leisurely pace. I had WordPerfect on one floppy, 1-2-3 on another floppy, and a few data floppies. It took four, or maybe it was six either C or D cells, and would last about two hours. Ah, miniaturization.

Posted by: BillH [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 10, 2015 7:08 AM

The NYT still hasn't gotten the memo that ink on pulp is not exactly the wave of the future.

Posted by: james wilson [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 10, 2015 8:45 AM

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