The Osborne 1: The First Commercially Successful "Portable" Computer

In April 1981 writer and computer entrepreneur Adam Osborne and Osborne Computer Corporation, Hayward, California, produced the first commercially successful "portable" computer, the Osborne 1. It weighed twenty-three pounds, ran the CP/M operating system, and sold for $1795, with $2000 worth of software included. Its main deficiencies were a tiny 5 inch (13 cm) display screen and use of single sided, single density floppy disk drives which could not contain sufficient data for practical business applications. Its 23 pound weight meant that the computer was more "luggable" than portable.