Any young person believes that the laptop (portable personal computer) has been with us since the beginning. This, as you may well have guessed, was not so at first. Create a computer with screen Y keyboard not weighing much and being able to move was not easy. This is his story.
On September 25, 1973, Microcomputer Computer Machines, Inc. (MCM), introduced the MCM/70 Offsite Link (MCM 70). MCM was founded in 1972 with the goal of designing, building, and marketing a state-of-the-art, yet portable, microcomputer.
Thus, the MCM/70 became the first truly portable computer and possibly the first truly usable microcomputer system on the market. Today he turns 49 years old.
The MCM/70 included one or two digital tape drives in a single physical unit that included the integral keyboard and display, with a total weight of about 9 kg. To emphasize the portability of the MCM/70, MCM made an optional carrying case available so that the entire computer could fit under an airplane seat.
The MCM/70 and the MCM/800, a more powerful model introduced in 1976could be connected to any printer, which was something completely new at the time.
The laptop used APLOffsite Link, developed by IBM, as the user language and it was the first commercially available computer to make APL its main or only user language. MCM continued with APL as the user language in the MCM/700 and later 800.
The MCM/70 offered the user virtual storage as an automatic standard feature, provided the computer was equipped with at least one tape drive or one disk drive. And this was the first commercially available computer to do this.
This allowed the user to perform large data manipulation tasksthe kind that would normally have required a mainframe, but of course more slowly on a very small and relatively expensive computer.
The laptop that paved the way for Apple
The MCM/70 was the first microcomputer that came with its operating system: AVS. This managed virtual storage transparently to the user and provided the interface between APL and hardware.
The MCM 70 provided a new level of hardware-software integration. It was the first clear case of what is called “co-design,” in which computer software and hardware are designed at the same time, by people working together, deliberately seeking a common set of goals for hardware performance when it is run by the software.
As advanced and sophisticated as all of ACM’s hardware and software innovations were, and as useful as the machines were for business customers before the PC revolution, MCM’s machines never reached high enough volume to allow for a lower cost per unit.
When he introduced the Manzana II in April 1977, at a much lower price and without the same limitations, became an immediate success, taking sales away from the MCM. Also, the Apple II’s ability to run VisiCalc was so compelling that many people bought it for that alone.
It and the open-architecture IBM PC introduced in 1981—and its clones—crowded the market that MCM was targeting. In 1981, when the PC revolution began, the company was in trouble and in 1985 MCM withdrew from the portable market.