Hardware Heritage—Briefcase-Sized Computers

Abstract

The computer industry was a vivid place in the 1980s. IT systems and technologies thrived, and the market offered ever better, smaller, and more useful machines. Innovative technical solutions or intelligent designs that satisfied customers’ needs are often listed as computer hardware milestones. Consequently, they became a permanent part of the computerisation history and can be considered hardware heritage artefacts. The purpose of the paper is to analyse the usability of selected portable computer systems. The foundation of the work is a literature review that includes technical specifications, industry reviews, and research papers. Archival materials were obtained from the Internet Archive. Studies have revealed that the main problems design engineers of portable computers had to tackle in the 1980s were the reduction of mass and size of the computer system, portable power (self-power), and the quality of the displayed image.

Keywords

• hardware heritage
• easy to carry
• briefcase-sized computer
• portable computer system
• lunchbox-style portable computer
• transportable computer