Osborne 1

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An opened Osborne 1 computer, ready for use. The keyboard sits on the inside of the lid.

The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released in April, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 23.5 pounds (12 kg), cost US$1795, and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. Its principal deficiencies were a tiny 5 inch (13 cm) display screen and single sided, single density floppy disk drives whose disks could not contain sufficient data for practical business applications. Its design owed much to that of the Xerox NoteTaker, a prototype developed at Xerox PARC in 1976.

1 Software and hardware details
2 Games
3 Peripherals
4 Market life
5 External links

[edit] Software and hardware details

The Osborne 1 was the first computer that came with application software. The WordStar word processor, SuperCalc spreadsheet, and the CBASIC and MBASIC programming languages—all software packages that were the leading applications in their respective niches at the time—had a retail value of more than $2,000. With the bundled MBASIC it was possible to run Colossal Cave Adventure.

ADVENT (Colossal_Cave_Adventure) running on an Osborne Computer circa 1982

Hardware features:

Dual 5¼-inch floppy disk drives
4 MHz Z80 CPU
65 kilobytes main memory
Fold-down keyboard doubling as the computer case's lid
5-inch, 52 character × 24 line monochrome CRT display
Parallel printer port
Serial port for use with external modems or serial printers

Operating system:

CP/M

[edit] Games

Since the display of the Osborne did not support graphics, games were typically character based games, like text adventures. An example of that would be " Deadline (1982)". This game involved playing an adventure style game where the player had 12 hours to solve a detective puzzle. The game was packaged in a dossier type folder and came on two 5 1/4" diskettes. The packaging also reference other games such as Zork and Starcross.

[edit] Peripherals

These peripherals were not part of the base computer. Peripherals may have been offered by particular vendors at various times.

External Monochrome screen - using separate synch and video connections, driven by the motherboard video circuitry.
Dot Matrix Parallel Printer (Made by Star)
300 Baud Modem - fit into a diskette storage pocket, powered from the motherboard.

A small set of aftermarket vendors offered several other upgrades to the basic model, including third-party double density disk drives, and external hard disks.

[edit] Market life

At its peak, Osborne Computer Corporation shipped 10,000 Osborne 1 units per month. The computer was widely imitated as several other computer companies started offering low-priced portable computers with bundled software. The Osborne 1 was about the size and weight of a heavily packed suitcase; one commercial humorously pointed out that it did not quite fit under an airplane seat. As such it is now classified as a "luggable" computer in comparison to later laptop designs. The Osborne's popularity was surpassed by the similar Kaypro II which had a much more practical 9 inch (23 cm) CRT that could display the standard 80 characters on 24 lines as well as double density floppies that could store twice as much data.

Osborne Computer Corporation was unable to effectively respond to the Kaypro challenge until after the market window had closed and the day of the 8-bit, CP/M-based computer had ended. Sales of the Osborne 1 were also hurt by the premature announcement of superior successor machines such as the Osborne Executive (See Osborne effect). Later Compaq delivered a portable computer (the Compaq Portable) with a 9 inch CRT, that was software compatible with the IBM PC, making it the first PC clone.

Osborne Computer Corporation filed for Chapter 11 in September 1983.