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torwag t1_iu46l0g wrote

Even in 1989 they played this "battery lifetime is hard to say" game already 😂

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HaikuBotStalksMe t1_iu4mlps wrote

"Battery can last 6 to 12 hours on a single charge!"

"Oh wow, so about three hours? That's actually pretty good."

Though back then they'd have said 1.5 to 2 hours, so probably 45 minutes - enough time for a lunch break or subway ride.

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nicholasruunu t1_iu41x6f wrote

All the way to F12, impressive.

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skoltroll t1_iu55eva wrote

Most businessmen had laptops at the time only went to F10. But his goes all the way to F12.

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kurujiru t1_iu77zjz wrote

Why not just make F10 two more? /spinaltap

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u9Nails t1_iu42tt3 wrote

Be on the lookout for those workers slamming the F12 key! They know what's up.

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SgtRamonRuiz t1_iu3z3rc wrote

With no internet

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dasoomer t1_iu41yw3 wrote

It would be 4 years or so until the public Internet was introduced even. Crazy to think about.

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Old-and-grumpy t1_iu5t2j8 wrote

You could email though. My brother and I used to write one another back then from different college campuses.

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over__________9000 t1_iu88j3b wrote

They had public internet in 1989

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dasoomer t1_iu8lddl wrote

Incorrect. Internet became public domain in 92/93. You're talking about the commercial availability which is entirely different.

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over__________9000 t1_iu8p5gq wrote

Are you thinking of the web? That’s a separate thing from the internet.

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dasoomer t1_iu8q7xg wrote

The public Internet, which your average Joe could use and sign up for in home use, was early 90s.

I was alive. We were one of the first people to get it.

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dasoomer t1_iu8qvke wrote

In the early 1990s the Internet was big news ... In the fall of 1990, there were just 313,000 computers on the Internet; by 1996, there were close to 10 million. The networking idea became politicized during the 1992 Clinton–Gore election campaign, where the rhetoric of the information highway captured the public imagination. On taking office in 1993, the new administration set in place a range of government initiatives for a National Information Infrastructure aimed at ensuring that all American citizens ultimately gain access to the new networks.[20]

From wiki - the internet has been around for awhile. The public Internet has not.

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nicholasruunu t1_iu4246u wrote

Had both external modem and ethernet card for the Toshiba slot!

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SgtRamonRuiz t1_iu42qsw wrote

I wonder where you’d find anything to connect to. Earliest I remember a friend’s dad connecting to the internet tied up the phone line for hours and he basically just said hi to a friend. There was nothing online for the average person to do.

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nicholasruunu t1_iu432cx wrote

The internet basically consisted of BBS, bulletin boards hosted by Universities and such. It was before my time though.

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Available-Fly-8268 t1_iu5l48k wrote

Some nerds/geeks had multiple phone lines with modems attached where folks could dial in and post messages similar to today's Craigslist or Kijiji. The first few years of the internet was pretty much about porn and Internet Relay Chat. Users who bought those Toshibas were I-T types and business people who wanted to do more work away from the office. I was in Field Service in that era, myself and many others were very impressed with that product. Networking at the office was only just beginning in that tyme as well. The floppy drive enabled users to copy or save a file to the disk, take the disk to another machine which had a printer attached and print the file. We called it sneaker net. The best part about being an I-T Guy in that era was the chicks.

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mechanab t1_iu4j1xb wrote

There was lots to connect to. CompuServe was already pretty big by this time. Lots of BBSs and universities. Listserv was just getting started I think.

I got my first modem around 1982. It was 300 baud and my mom was always pissed because I would be using the phone line for hours.

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SgtRamonRuiz t1_iu4jr0h wrote

Lots of money for a listserv. I just can’t imagine being mobile and wanting/needing/being able to connect.

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mechanab t1_iu4lor6 wrote

The mobility was for business. My older sister needed to travel for work and had one of those suitcase Compaq luggables. She would need to dial in as well. This was around 1986 I think.

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Masters_1989 t1_iu7ir2d wrote

That's incredible. I never knew things started so early.

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GoodOmens t1_iu4fp6f wrote

Trade Wars 2002!!!!

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aricknight t1_iu5aoo3 wrote

I was more of a lord guy myself but for mentioning any BBS door you get an upvote.

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kabekew t1_iu6ipl6 wrote

Compuserve, AOL and Prodigy were pretty popular back then, with online games, chat, message boards and downloadable software. For business there was Dow Jones where you could get stock quotes and financial news.

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shambahlah t1_iu4rk6g wrote

No Internet but modems were a thing. You just had to be in the know, who to connect to.

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Cashbeking t1_iu49wbr wrote

Well I have a 3.5 inch floppy that I give away for free.

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TappedIn2111 t1_iu4ldaq wrote

And if you’re real nice it goes all the way to F12 ifyouknowwhatimean

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IDKFA2017 t1_iu4kfvs wrote

Impressive, very nice. Let’s see Paul Allen’s laptop.

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newMike3400 t1_iu5bkj6 wrote

His keyboard is eggshell and the letters are Roman and embossed.

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maarski t1_iu4372w wrote

Ahh, a DIX ethernet connector. These were the days.

​

Trivia why DIX ?

>!Digital, IBM, Xerox!<

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Kbdiggity t1_iu47epm wrote

What a weird place to put the dollar sign.

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geizeskrank t1_iu48jkf wrote

Why ?

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JrodRiga13 t1_iu4e95y wrote

Because in America we put the $ before the number. ($1, $2, $100). ( Just in case you're not trolling 😂)

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mcds99 t1_iu4v7ki wrote

I worked for a company called Entree back then ,I sold a lot of those "portables" back then. I sold a lot of 8088, 80286, and 80386 processor based computers. The black one behind it had a red Gas Plasma display.

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markedasred t1_iu44h2q wrote

A friend of mine went to Japan in the late 80s, and came back with a slimmer laptop than this, with a printer built in.

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mechanab t1_iu4jkgm wrote

I remember something similar, but it was an 8086 and had a smaller monochrome screen.

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fangelo2 t1_iu4ahuo wrote

C:\ Is all you saw when you turned it on.

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smoky77211 t1_iu4ca7b wrote

Doubtful. It likely needed you to load DOS.

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HaikuBotStalksMe t1_iu4mx7m wrote

I think by 1989, OSes were installed to local drive.

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ItDoesntMatter59 t1_iu6nfyf wrote

Boot from floppy was normal. HDD was more expensive and my first pc had a 10mb drive.

Mb. Not gb.

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HaikuBotStalksMe t1_iu6ty4v wrote

10 mb is huge for that time. The OS would have been like, what, 800 kilobytes? So after formatting and stuff, I'd figure you had 9.5 megs free.

Install DOS to hardrive, you have crazy fast boot times (probably 15 seconds instead of a minute), and still like 8.8 megabytes for all your text files.

I started computing in 1995ish with a 300ish meg hardrive (I think 320). It was reasonably sized until like 1999.

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notacanuckskibum t1_iu6xe11 wrote

Things were changing so fast it’s hard to remember exactly where we were in which year. 1989 would have been about Windows 1.0.

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TheWausauDude t1_iu4gj9y wrote

I’ve got an old Ibm “portable” pc that’s more of a suitcase from 1983 laying around yet. It fires up but immediately takes you to what looks like an old version of Basic. While it has a hard drive I’m sure it’s probably bad as the light for it seems to just cycle on and off over and over.

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notacanuckskibum t1_iu6x2qv wrote

The one where the keyboard acts as a lid, with a 3” screen and twin 5” floppy drives? I remember working on one of those. Geophysics and charting.

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TheWausauDude t1_iu70y1f wrote

Yeah that’s it. The keyboard folds down and you have the little yellow monochrome screen on the left with the drives on the right. Keyboard connects with what appears to be a phone jack. It even has a carry case that zips up around it, but I can’t imagine lugging one of those around. Damn thing must weigh at least 20-30lbs.

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notacanuckskibum t1_iu71gfe wrote

Yes. More a luggable than a laptop. But we were heading into rural Norway with Land Rovers and stuff. The ability to bring a computer of any type along was mind blowing at the time.

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bigedthebad t1_iu5a1zd wrote

Back in those days, it was generally accepted that a PC would always cost about $3,000.

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10YearJockItch t1_iu5yeev wrote

Man, my 2021 Galaxy smart phone doesn't even have a thin or a thick Ethernet port. What are you even doing, smart phone manufacturers?

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Stumpy-the-dog t1_iu6ary0 wrote

Two serial ports.

a niner and a twenty-fiver.

Just in-case.

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ramriot t1_iu4fogg wrote

I've owned laptops going back to almost that era & in current dollars the price has decreased about 10 fold & quite linearly.

Although it should be said that quality & robustness has gone down commensurally as well.

I did purchase for my SO a Panasonic toughbook some years back which was way more powerful yet only as robust as my early $4,995 Toshiba, it cost me $4,500 in 2010.

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mechanab t1_iu4kie9 wrote

Those old Toshibas were great, but very expensive. I always ended up getting something cheaper.

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zerobeat t1_iu5jmbm wrote

> Although it should be said that quality & robustness has gone down commensurally as well.

Except for the backlight and hinge. Oh my god there was nothing worse then that damn tube light burning out or the video cable giving out after a short time. Happened way too frequently, too early, and was incredibly expensive to fix.

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de-funked t1_iu4mujh wrote

1400 baud dial up- no waiting! 😂

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davewave3283 t1_iu4t08g wrote

The ability to do auto calculating spreadsheets instead of manually writing them out would have been worth 12k on its own.

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shockeroo t1_iu4y0t3 wrote

And still a higher quality keyboard than you’ll find on any laptop produced this century!

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aricknight t1_iu5b49x wrote

I had something very similar to this in the late 90s that I bought from a garage sale. I remember I used it to log on to BBS and through that BBS I used IRC because they had an IRC module. The first IRC chat I used on that system I told them what type of system I had and they banned me from the chat room because they thought I was lying because it was impossible to access IRC through such a system. :)

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smb3d t1_iu6eub2 wrote

Interviewer: "How much life on that battery?"

Guy: "It's hard to say"

hahaha, about 10 minutes.

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JohnSolomon46 t1_iu6mqoq wrote

I have two IBM P70 386 and one IBM P75, both portable computers like this one. The latter was $18,500 in 1989 when it was released. It’s a shame because I’m too computer illiterate to get any of the three running lol. They aren’t battery powered they are corded but fold into a slim package

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19Jamie76 t1_iu76uhq wrote

I know what the kids are getting for Christmas.

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Chub62 t1_iu7fatx wrote

Computer Chronicles. Been a while since my memory of Gary Kildall resurfaced. Long live CP/M.

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ThatsWhatPutinWants t1_iu49nu3 wrote

I feel like thats not accurate when adjusting for cutting edge technology market deflation and manufacturing curve. Anything technology related shouldnt be treated the same as a bicycle for example, when it comes to accurate inflation.

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ga-co t1_iu4cwku wrote

So about that battery life…

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JrodRiga13 t1_iu4e30g wrote

But how long is the battery life!!!!!

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Available-Fly-8268 t1_iu5lr42 wrote

It was hit and miss with those batteries. Some lasted only a few minutes, some caught fire.

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googleCookieMonster t1_iu5x6y9 wrote

Battery? What battery? What are you talking about? Have another floppy drive, why not TWO modems! And 12 function keys, what more do you want?

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cowannago t1_iu4e40g wrote

That guy should be wearing an esd bracelet.

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Careless_Rub_7996 t1_iu4flsl wrote

I work in IT, and my boss told me that during the 70s to 80s he had to take a bit of mortgage outta his house to buy a PC like the APPLE 3, for like almost 10grand, just for EXCEL.

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mechanab t1_iu4jxk7 wrote

Apple IIIs were very expensive (not worth it). It wasn’t for Excel, it was probably VisiCalc.

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TappedIn2111 t1_iu4l8nq wrote

‚It goes all the way to F12.‘

This might be my favourite quote ever.

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yertle38 t1_iu4mvcq wrote

We had a family friend who had a tech review column. I remember him showing me a ~$7000 Toshiba laptop in this timeframe - inflation calculator says $15k+ in today dollars. PCs have gotten so much more affordable!

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pezjunki t1_iu4ut6a wrote

Ha! My first work computer!! So heavy lugging it to Mexico City every week.

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Available-Fly-8268 t1_iu5m3o9 wrote

I had the Compaq. It literally came in a suitcase. The screen was amber though so it was awesome.

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gitarzan t1_iu5yhss wrote

My first IT job gave me one of those about 1992. It was a few years old, I was brought into the shop because I was a PC nut. The rest of the shop, and the facility, used dumb terminals on DEC-Net. It was kind of sluggish already by then. I used to bring in an AOL disk and download apps, copy them to a 3.5” disk and take them home. It was still just dialup, but I could do it non-my time.

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jar1967 t1_iu6tecw wrote

Today it would be considered a valuable antique of fully functional example would sell for more than $12,000

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tooth999 t1_iu7q4rd wrote

This just makes me think of they Hey Burkie story of him giving his NHL scouts these clunky laptops and all the other NHL scouts having their minds blown and scrambling to match.

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Acanthocephala-Muted t1_iue03pk wrote

I was selling Apple systems back in the 80's and would routinely sell Apple II's, printers, software and some supplies ( a complete "system") for 5 to 8K. At 5000.00 that would be around 13,000.00 in today's dollars.

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