As I wrap up my unofficial history of electricity, I thought it would be nice to come up with a list of firsts, a greatest hits of the ground breaking devices that, when they came out they were weird, but now, we love 'em.
So, here they are starting with the first portable computer in 1981:
It was called the Osborne 1, weighed in at about 25 pounds and had a processor with the speed of an ant in molasses. It featured a cataract inducing 5 inch CRT monitor and two complete 5 1/4 floppy drives (not cut down or smaller versions just for the Osborne 1, but full size desktop drives just stuffed in the case. It came with an optional modem for surfing all 200 bulletin boards avaible in 1981.
The first mobile phone had a few starts with a couple of true mobile phones coming out in the 50's and 60's, though these could only communicate with a home base, and really, some of them weighed almost a 100 pounds. Not much mobility in that mobile. The first real cell phone is of course the classic Motorola "brick" phone, first used by Martin Cooper in 1973.
Lucky us because in 1956 the first protable television, the British Ekcovision came out. Not much on the device except it was made by that stalwart British lectronics company, EK Cole. It's actually a real spiffy looking little rig. See above.
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