What is a Notebook?
From the time when the first computer was powered on in the early 1940s, users have craved mobility. I’m certain of it. Sitting in the lunch room, some guy with a crew cut, thick glasses, and a white lab coat popped up and said, “How ’bout we put wheels on the ENIAC? Then we could roll it out into the quad and work outside on a sunny day? Hey?” And so the dream was born.
Any computer can be mobile. The solution is simple: Just add a handle. I remember my first portable TV. It may have weighed over 40 pounds, but dangit, the thing had a handle, and therefore it was portable. Seeing that portability is often desired in a product, manufacturers were quick to add handles to everything, blessing products such as blenders, table saws, microwave ovens, and grand pianos with the gift of portability. For computers, the desire to make it portable is a primeval one. It was a quest for the Holy Grail, but without a Holy Grail. That’s because the true notion of what a portable computer is, and what it could offer, changed subtly over time.