Personal Computer Research Paper

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"Alan Kay has remarked that had Vannevar Bush enjoyed working in all-night coffee shops, he would have invented the portable computer." (Press, 1993, p.31) The laptop computer has had a tremendous impact in the areas of business, education, government, and personal use. The emergence of portable computing and the laptop computer can be traced to the introduction of the personal computer itself. In 1975, the MITS Altair 8800 was introduced. The Altair is recognized as being the first commercially successful personal computer and the launching point for the personal computer revolution (Sysop, n.d.). Almost simultaneously, the idea of portability (in particular for the business-person) became a major focus in the industry. …show more content…

Released in 1982, the Compass was also used by paratroopers in the Special Forces (Spence, 2005). By 1986, IBM had released their first computer that ran on batteries, the 5140 Convertible. Apple released its first portable computer in 1989, the Macintosh Portable. Portable computers would continue to evolve into the familiar laptop and notebook computers of today, which in turn are evolving into ever smaller computing devices as technology continues to rapidly …show more content…

Dell, for example, states that its laptop sales are growing at a rate of 30% a year, while retail stores in the United States sold 24% more laptops during the last 5 weeks of 2004 than the same time period in 2003 (Kessler, 2005). According to Intel Vice President Mooly Eden, the number of laptops in the US doubled from 2001 to 2004, and he believes it will double again between 2004 and 2008 (Kessler, 2005). Clearly there is a growing demand for portable computing across the afore-mentioned social groups, especially in business. With this new dynamic of increasing reliability on portable computers, new challenges arise which must be

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