The search for laptop weightlessness
Just because the marketing department labeled the computer a “laptop” didn’t mean that it was sleek and lightweight. For a while there, it seemed like anyone could get away with calling a portable PC a laptop, despite the computer weighing up to 20 pounds — which is enough to crush any lap, not to mention kneecaps.
In the fall of 1989, NEC showed that it could think outside of the laptop box when it introduced the UltraLite laptop. It featured a fullsized screen and keyboard, but no disk drives or other moving parts! The UltraLite used battery-backed up memory to serve as a silicon disk. The silicon disk stored 1 or 2MB of data — which was plenty back in those days. The UltraLite featured a modem, but it could also talk with a desktop computer via its serial port and a special cable. Included with the UltraLite was software that would let it easily exchange files and programs with any desktop PC.
The weight? Yes, the UltraLite lived up to its name and weighed in at just under 5 pounds — a feather compared to the obese laptops of the day. And the battery lasted a whopping two hours, thanks to the UltraLite’s lack of moving parts.