Tesseract Posted October 11, 2002 Share Posted October 11, 2002 Ten years ago this week, IBM debuted the ThinkPad notebook -- and the company known for refrigerator-size mainframes ignited a major shift in laptop design and engineering. Laptops in the late 1980s and early 1990s were hardly an acceptable alternative to desktop PCs. They only fit in a lap if the user matched Paul Bunyan's proportions. Screens were barely larger than a business envelope. Processors lagged several generations behind those of their desktop brethren. But with the 1992 release of the ThinkPad 700 -- which cost $4,350 -- IBM introduced a number of ground-breaking features, such as a thinner, ergonomic design, a keyboard light and a large color screen. Up until then, laptop displays had all been monochrome. It also introduced the TrackPoint pointing stick, a nub-like device shaped like a pencil eraser and originally developed by ALPS Electronics of Japan. At the time, the same pointer appeared in one other product, a Gateway notebook, but it was placed way over to the right of the keyboard. Read More..... Source: Wired Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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