It’s no secret that technology is constantly getting smaller, particularly during the past ten or twenty years where technology has seen an explosion of progress, moving at blazing speed, and this is perhaps most clear in the advances seen with computer notebooks. First let’s put things into perspective. The first true program-controlled computer as we recognize them today, the Z3, was built in 1941 by Konrad Zuse. Also keep in mind that at present as we may already know, notebook laptops are matching no contract cellphones in selling rates which is in fact great for the computer industry.
It was nearly the size of a small passenger car and weighed roughly 2,200 pounds, had no monitor or display beyond a few bulbs that would light to relay simple information, and had a memory capacity of about 22 bits. 67 years later in 2008, Apple released a new model of its MacBook Pro notebooks with the surface area equivocal to a dinner plate and only an inch thick, weighing 6.8 pounds, with a 17 inch screen and a memory capacity of 4 gigabytes – about 1.8 billion times far more than the Z3. Never before in the history of technology have advances come at this type of rapid pace, and currently laptops are at the top of this onslaught.
The development and popularity of notebook computers came as a natural result of the elevated existence and dependence upon desktop computers. As with most technologies, as soon as desktop personal computers became a facet of everyday life, there was a demand to make the technology portable, and so notebooks (the more modern name for the more apt moniker “laptop”) first made their appearance on the scene.
The first commercially ready notebooks were the Osborne 1 series, which could hardly be called notebooks however were nevertheless revolutionary in concept. It barely resembled a laptop computer at all, looking more like a mobile sewing machine. It had only a tiny 5 inch screen, and did not even run on batteries rather requiring access to a wall outlet, but it was the first personal computer that could be easily transported, enabling users to carry data with them from location to location.
Briefly thereafter, notebook computers began to take on their familiar form, which they sustain to this day. Even so, in recent years, new designs beyond the standard fold-out variety have become increasingly preferred. Subnotebooks are gaining in popularity, due to even more emphasis on small size and portability, and use their reduction in features in lieu of light-weight and slim layout as a selling point. The introduction of touch screen technology to the mainstream has also led to the radical redesign of portable notebooks. So called tablet notebooks are now available and are becoming increasingly common, consisting of only a few functional buttons and leaving most of the input commands to the use of a stylus on a touchscreen that covers a lot of the surface area.