WEBVTT - How Laptop Computers Evolved 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.200 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.120 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with my Heart Radio 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:24.040 and I love all things tech and I did an 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.240 episode about the early history of laptops, and I talked 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:32.040 about the emergence of portable computers in general. It took 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.080 a surprisingly long time to get to the clamshell form 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.440 factor that we tend to associate with the word laptop. Okay, 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:43.600 it really actually wasn't that surprising, because when you're displayed 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.879 technology of the time relies heavily on cathode ray tube 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:53.320 or CRT monitors, you can't exactly slim that down. Now, 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.200 these are the old style monitors. They're also old style 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:01.280 CRT televisions, which are those big boxy things, the really heavy, 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.560 boxy monitors. And in fact, I'm gonna start this episode 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.320 by explaining what's going on inside those old sets so 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.319 that we can understand why they're so big in the 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.560 first place, and why that meant that the early boordable 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:20.760 computers were pretty hefty things. So if you listen to 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.440 that last episode, you heard me talk about how computers 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.880 used to take up entire rooms or sometimes entire floors 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.360 of a building. These machines were massive, largely because the 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:38.120 components that designers used were themselves big. The parts that 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.240 the computer were made of were large. There were no transistors, 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.640 especially no transistors that are down to the nano scale. 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.480 Back in those days. Circuits were actually made up of 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.120 big wires and stuff like vacuum tubes, and those took 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.240 up a lot of space. A CRT display or CRT 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.120 television has something similar inside of it. The screen you 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.880 look at is actually the end of that vacuum tube 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.919 like structure. In fact, I would argue that the cathode, 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.280 ray tube, the vacuum tube, and even the lightbulb are 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.000 all closely related. They are all components that have a 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.800 filament inside them. The filament heats up when you pass 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:24.519 electricity through it. They all have glass that surround the filament, 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.560 And what we're really interested in is the energy that 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.639 that filament gives off as a result of being heated. Now, 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:37.200 with lightbulbs, which are not a vacuum, that is one 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:39.840 major difference between them and vacuum tubes and c RT s. 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:41.840 But with light bulbs, the energy it gives off is 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:46.120 drum roll, please light. The filament heats up due to 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:49.120 that electrical resistance until it's hot enough to glow. And 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:54.320 with cathode ray tubes, it's not light, it's electrons, so 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.679 we'll start super basic. Electrons are, of course, those negatively 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.880 charged sub atomic particles, and typically we find them in 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.960 an orbit around an atomic nucleus. The atomic nucleus has 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:11.239 positively charged protons, and those attract electrons because opposite charges 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:16.600 attract one another and like charges repel one another. Well, 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:21.000 if you start to pour energy into an atom, then 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:25.200 you're going to start pushing electrons further out from that nucleus. 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.560 The electrons furthest out would be the ones that would 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.880 be affected. They would move into energy levels energy shells 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.440 further out from the nucleus. So if you pour enough 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.040 energy and you can actually pop that electron right off 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.960 and you ionize the atom. In fact, that's kind of 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.800 why we worry about ionizing radiation. It has this sort 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.360 of energy that can do this. It can turn atoms 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.240 into ions. Those would be atoms that have a net charge, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:55.040 whether positive or negative, due to either losing or gaining 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.880 electrons compared to the number of protons. So electric current 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.800 is the flow of electrons. Well, you know, actually that's 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.760 that's only partly correct, as you could have a flow 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.640 of protons in something like a plasma and that would 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.600 technically be an electric current too, because electric current is 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.720 really concerned with the movement of electric charge, not whether 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.240 or not the charge is positive or negative. But we 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.640 can leave that behind because times out of a hundred 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.600 when we talk about electric current, we're talking about electrons. Now, 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:31.000 as I mentioned earlier, the screen on a television is 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.960 the end of the cathode ray tube. So a television 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:40.520 screen is just a very very wide tube ending the 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:44.080 other end is very narrow. Indeed, so at that opposite end, 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.279 the opposite side from the screen, way back inside the 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.680 television or the computer monitor is the cathode and the 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.960 electron gun. So the cathode is the negative terminal. It's 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.320 the thing that emits electrons when you turn on the power. 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.520 So the inside of the the CRT, the actual tube, 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.600 is a vacuum. That means that the electrons that are 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.040 emitted can move freely through that space. There's no air 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.960 molecules that the electrons could potentially interact with. That's why 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.200 you have to have a vacuum inside of a vacuum 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.880 tube or a CRT is to let these electrons flow 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.480 freely and not have to worry about them interacting with 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.960 something else. You have the anode or the positively charged 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.960 terminal of the CRT towards the screen side, so that's 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:35.400 what's attracting the electrons towards the screen. As the beam 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:41.600 of electrons hit the backside of the screen, it impacts phosphor. 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.240 Uh So, the inside of the screen has a phosphor 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.960 coating on it. So when an electron hits phosphor, the 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.520 phosphor ends up being quote unquote excited. And it's not 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.760 because you're settling down to watch Tiger King or whatever. No, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.599 the electron imparts energy to the phosphor, and the phosphor 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.120 luminesses as a result, So that means it gives off light. 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.159 And there's a lot more to it than what I 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.080 just described, but I've done full episodes on it, and 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.200 it would take a long time to go into all 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.360 the details, but here the big takeaways. Before companies had 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.920 found ways to bring the manufacturing costs down for stuff 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.960 like l c D displays and to get it at 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.880 a level of resolution that would be suitable for a 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.440 computer screen. The CRT was the go to, otherwise you 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.480 would just have a prohibitively expensive computer because the l 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:39.400 c D manufacturing process was still relatively new. So having 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.520 a giant vacuum tube also meant it was really hard 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:46.599 to make a device that incorporated a screen and have 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.800 it be portable because just the nature of the tube 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.120 meant the screen had to be a pretty decent size. 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.880 And what's more, because the CRT requires a vacuum, the 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.479 monitors or television sets had to be extra dirty to 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.960 withstand the tremendous difference in atmospheric pressure between the inside 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:09.720 of the CRT and the outside world. So old televisions 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:14.040 and old computer monitors are super heavy because they had 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.760 to be. Engineers had to make them out of sturdy stuff, 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:21.320 including thick glass for those screens, and the bigger the display, 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.080 the thicker the glass had to be, and glass will 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.680 add a lot of weight to a device in a hurry. 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.280 So while I did express some surprise that took so 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.720 long for someone to come up with the clamshell design 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.840 for portable computers, in reality, it's not that big of 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:41.200 a surprise at all. Because l C d screens. Screens 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.240 that didn't require this cathode ray tube technology had not 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.440 really been a viable option for very long. Now, in 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.200 the last episode, I left off with the Macintosh Portable, 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:56.280 Apple's first attempt at making a laptop, and ultimately that 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.320 machine did not sell very well. It was heavy, it 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.080 was bulky, it was extremely expensive. But this was also 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.800 nineteen eighty nine, a time when it was still more 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.080 common for the average household to not have a computer 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.600 at all. In fact, in nineteen nine, only fifteen percent 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.960 of households in America owned a computer, according to Statista 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.800 dot com. The vast majority of that fifteen percent likely 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.640 owned a desktop, so portable computers were, in general a 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:30.160 very tiny slice of a still relatively tiny market. The 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.960 same year that Apple launched their failed first laptop, another 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.840 company called n e C began a new chapter in 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:41.560 the laptop saga. And I'll call this chapter the notebook. Now, 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.880 this is not the two thousand four drama starring Rachel 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:49.920 McAdams and Ryan Gosling. Instead, notebook is a subcategory of 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.920 laptop computers. And we're kind of back to that same 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.680 problem I mentioned in the last episode, you know, the 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.040 one where how do we distinguish between something like the 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.000 difference between a hill and a mountain. You know, you 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.200 normally would say a mountain is taller and steeper than 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.600 a hill, but it really can't just be elevation. There's 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.680 some things that we call hills that are taller than 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.520 some other things that we call mountains, So it gets 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.240 really subjective. Well, the same can be true in notebook 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:21.000 and laptop anyway. Generally speaking, notebooks are supposed to be smaller, 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.760 more portable versions of laptops, which are already supposed to 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.400 be portable. They're also supposed to be less powerful, or 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.280 they tend to be less powerful. That's usually a trade 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.720 off in order to lighten the load and slim down 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.199 the form factor. You do that partly by not including 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:41.160 so many features, and that in turn brings down the 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.200 weight of the device. The size limit of the device 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:50.160 gets reduced, and you also can charge less for it. 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.520 It costs less to make and you can charge less 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:56.000 when you're selling them. They tend to be positioned in 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:59.680 the market as more of a personal computer. The full 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:04.160 lap top would be geared more toward business times. Now, 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.240 I would argue that these distinctions are so subjective as 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.160 to be almost meaningless, like one person's laptop could be 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.360 another person's notebook, and vice versa, and form does not 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.200 always dictate function. There are people who will use a 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.080 hefty portable computer that you would never call a notebook, 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:22.320 kind of like the one I'm on right now. This 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.240 one is a beefy alien ware gaming laptop that I've 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.720 got all my notes on. It's quite heavy, and they'll 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.400 use it to do light work like word processing, which 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.760 I could do on any computer, especially since I'm using 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:40.280 a web based UH service for all of my word processing. 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.360 It's not even a program that's running natively on my computer. 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:45.920 I could use anything, but I'm using this big, old 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.679 beefy monster here instead. In fact, I'm sure if my 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.600 computer had a heart, that heart would be breaking right 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.040 now because I'm using it to type out notes rather 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.280 than blast zombies and do maternal But I digress anyway. 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:03.640 The word book got some traction as various tech journalists 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:05.880 started to use that term kind of in an effort 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:10.240 to just make an easy distinction between lightweight laptops and 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.680 the big ones. So notebooks are a type of laptop 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.599 that tend to be lighter, thinner, smaller, and less powerful 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:22.280 than their larger counterparts. An ec ultra Light fit into 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:26.720 that category nicely. While other laptops like the Macintosh Portable 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.880 we're tipping the scales at sixteen pounds or about seven 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:34.120 point three kilograms, the Ultra Light was just four point 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.440 four pounds or two kilograms. When closed, the ultra Light 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.160 measured one point four inches thick, that's about three point 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.880 six centimeters. The CPU ran at eight point one four 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:50.120 mega hurts. It had six of RAM for system memory, 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.319 and it also relied on a non volatile battery backed 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.800 solid state memory for storage, which was kind of interesting. 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.680 I mean this was before really the rise of solid 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.240 state drives. You wouldn't see that come around until a 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:06.320 little later, and they were really expensive. But this was 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.920 a way of having a lightweight, uh long term memory 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:17.240 storage solution that didn't require moving parts. The standard Ultra 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.640 Light could store one hole megabyte of data on the 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.000 solid state memory, so it wasn't huge by any stretch 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.280 of the imagination. Of course, back in the day, I 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.280 remember when I thought a megabyte would be more than 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.200 I would ever need. Oh I was so dumb, still am, 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.319 but now I'm older. So while it supported a rechargeable battery, 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.480 that being the n ec ultra Light, That charge would 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.320 only last a couple of hours max. So many tech 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.840 reviewers wrote that it was kind of a waste of time. 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.440 I mean, yeah, you could have this super light portable computer, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.840 you can easily carry it everywhere, but you'd still have 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.880 to carry a cable and plug the darned thing into 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.440 the outlet. You couldn't just use it on battery power 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.640 for you know, a full day. So what's the point? 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.640 I find that pretty funny today, because these days I 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.679 cannot take any laptop with me anywhere without the cable 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:09.560 and expected to last more than just a few hours. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:11.920 It's funny to me how the world can change. Although 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.560 this is also due to the fact that, as we 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.120 mentioned in the last episode, even as our computers get 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.720 more powerful and more efficient, software gets more complicated and 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.520 requires more assets and resources, so it nullifies all those 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:32.920 advances effectively. Well, the Ultralight reviews were mixed. People thought 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.200 the lightweight was impressive, but they found the lack of 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:39.080 other features like a printer port that made it a problem. 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:40.800 How could you use it for business If you didn't 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.680 have a port for a printer, you could swap out 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:48.680 the floppy disk external drive for a an adapter to 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.280 connect the printer, but it wasn't easy and at a 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.440 list price of of three thousand dollars, they might have 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.080 been designed to be a personal computer for leisure, but 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.480 it wasn't priced like one. While this was all going on, 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.520 other manufacturers were also making lightweight computers, and a lot 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.080 of them were not yet following the clamshell design. The 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.720 Cambridge Z eight eight, which only weighed two pounds or 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.280 point nine kilograms, was an example of this. It was 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.720 not a clamshell laptop. Instead, this computer kind of looks 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:24.840 like a calculator with delusions of grandeur. There's an LCD 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:29.080 screen mounted above a full keyboard. The keyboard itself was 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.680 a membrane keyboard, which also meant typing on a Z 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.760 eighty eight was super quiet. You could turn on a 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.000 little digital click noise if it was too disturbing for you. 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:40.520 And the computer was powered by and I am not 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.720 making this up four double A batteries, and those four 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:46.720 double A batteries could provide a charge of up to 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.880 twenty hours of work time, which is a phenomenal design 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.640 when it comes to power efficiency. Sure this wasn't a 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.200 computer you would do stuff like play modern games on 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.480 or whatever, although people did create games for this machine. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.200 But it was an incredibly portable, lightweight computer, and if 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.760 you needed more power, you could pop out and grab 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.080 a four pack of double A batteries and you're good. Now. 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.320 I never owned one of these myself, that I understand, 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.080 there's a small but passionate group of enthusiasts who still 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.080 tinker with them, and I think that's pretty cool. Despite 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.680 computers like the Z eight eight, the general design philosophy 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.840 around portable computers was starting to coalesce behind the clamshell 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:27.720 design that the old Compass Grid eleven oh one had established. 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.480 And like I said in Part one, I'm not gonna 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.120 go over every laptop. That would just be ridiculous, but 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.720 I do want to cover a few notable early laptops 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.440 that have their place in history, and one of those 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.560 would be Apple's second attempt to design a marketable portable computer. 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:47.320 The Macintosh Portables were a bust. They just didn't sell 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.640 very well, so the company went back to the drawing board. 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:54.360 In a few years before Steve Jobs would come back 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.880 to the company, Apple introduced the power Book, which was 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:03.080 a new clamshell style portable mac The company launched three models, 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.560 all at the same time. You had the power Book 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.560 one hundred, the power Book one forty, and then the 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.840 one seventy. The one hundred was the baseline model. The 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.400 other two had additional features. For example, the one seventy 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.720 had a much more powerful processor. The power Book one 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.000 hundred weighed ten pounds less than the portable Macintosh from 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.680 a few years earlier. I remember the portable Macintosh weighed 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.480 in at sixteen pounds. The power Book was actually much 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.840 closer to five pounds, around two point three kilograms, and 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.040 had a sixteen mega Hurts processor. It came standard with 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.280 two megabytes of memory. Were actually in the megabyte era 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.080 of RAM. Now we were in the kilobyte era for 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.040 a very long time there, and you could supplement those 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:50.200 two megabytes of RAM with an additional six megabytes with 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.200 a special memory module. The display measured nine inches on 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.160 the diagonal. That would be about twenty three centimeters, although 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.080 I think pretty much everyone refers to screen size and 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:03.680 inches these days. It was also a monochromatic screen, so 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.639 it wasn't a color display yet for portable max it 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.440 had an expansion slot for a modem, which is pretty 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.879 impressive for a laptop from and the standard amount of 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.480 storage on one of these was a twiny megabyte hard drive. 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.919 It also had max Graphic User interface or gooey, So 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.960 the regular mac os the one where you would have 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:28.240 icons representing different programs, the basic type of operating system 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.600 most of us are familiar with these days. But that 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.720 meant you needed a way to navigate that interface. You 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.760 know that was designed for a mouse and keyboard, but 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.760 you're talking about a laptop, a portable machine. How do 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:44.720 you incorporate a mouse in a portable machine. Apple's original 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.000 solution was to include a track ball on the keyboard 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:49.800 part of the laptop. So there was actually a little 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.840 ball that you could use and roll around to act 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.320 as your mouse, and it was positioned below the space 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.000 bar on the keyboard and in between where your hands 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:00.879 would be if you have your faces sitting on the 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.679 rest keys of the keyboard. That placement would become the 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.760 standard spot for stuff like touch pads in the near future. 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:08.800 We're gonna get the touch pads in just a second. 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:14.159 The MacBook would also set you back twenty five hundred dollars, 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.520 so that's about four thousand, seven hundred fifty bucks in 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.879 today's cash, so still pretty darn expensive. And this was 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.879 the basic model of the MacBook. However, the smaller form 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.320 factor and the advancements and processors and storage made it 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.480 much more attractive than the old Macintosh portable computers, and 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.600 the PowerBook line would succeed where the earlier ones failed. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.240 By the way, in case you're curious how the one 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.520 compared against the other end of Apple's launch power books, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.120 you know, the one seventy being the top end, I'll 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:47.600 give you a very quick rundown. The one seventy had 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.560 a faster processor. It ran at twenty five mega hurts, 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.359 not sixteen. It also had twice as much RAM and 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.080 standard at four megabytes, you could max that out at 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:00.120 eight megabytes again with a memory module. Had a larger display. 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.760 It was still a monochromatic display, but it included the 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:08.160 active matrix technology that Apple had introduced with those old 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:13.159 portable Macintoshes, which introduced much less blur. It had a 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:17.440 faster updating screen, and it came standard with a modem 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.560 which you would hook up to a phone line. And 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.640 this was a good old two hundred bawd modem. I'll 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.240 have to go into modems in a future episode to 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.400 talk about those days, because boy do I remember them 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.080 and I don't miss them. And uh, it cost about 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.679 four thousand, six hundred bucks, which would be around eight 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:38.280 seven hundred dollars in today's cash, so yawza. And the 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.639 battery life on these things was good for about three 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.440 hours max. How far we've come? All right, I've got 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.119 more to say about laptops and their history in just 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:57.119 a moment, but let's take a quick break. So just 0:19:57.200 --> 0:19:59.680 before the break, I talked about how the power Book 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.840 line helped get Apple into the portable computer game, but 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.160 I also mentioned that there was a fairly short battery 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.879 life and in general that was becoming a bottleneck for 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:13.160 portable computers. Processor speeds were getting better, in fact, twice 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.359 as better, you might say, every eighteen months or so, 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:19.960 thank you Gordon Moore. Display technology was also improving. But 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:24.080 all these components needed electricity, and if you're designing a 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.399 desktop computer, that's not a big deal. You create a 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.240 power supply unit for the PC that's good enough to 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.520 support everything, and then you plug it into a wall 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:36.040 outlet and you've got a nice, steady supply of juice, 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.280 you're good to go. It doesn't really matter if the 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:42.119 processor is requiring a lot more power, everything's fine. But 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.600 with a laptop, particularly a laptop that is not plugged 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.320 into a wall, that is reliant upon battery power, things 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.840 are different. Batteries can only store a finite amount of 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.000 electricity before they need to be recharged, and that can 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:57.719 be really inconvenient if you're in the middle of working 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.520 on an important document or presentation or video or whatever. 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.240 So how do you meet the challenge of delivering upon 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.840 expectations where people have a bare minimum that they expect 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.800 from a computer, but you also avoid either a uselessly 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.640 short battery life, meaning you're always going to be plugged in, 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.920 you're never gonna worry about being unplugged because it's just not, 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.760 you know, a viable option, or you go the other way. 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.960 You end up having a great battery it just also 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.400 weighs a ton and makes your portable computer way less portable. 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:33.399 How do you avoid that? Well, one way is to 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.560 create a more efficient means of managing power in the 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:40.120 first place, and that's what Intel and Microsoft set out 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.240 to do when the two companies partnered to create advanced 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.200 power management or a p M, and a p M 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:52.320 is an a p I, which isn't confusing at all. Right, Okay, 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.800 So an a p I is an application programming interface, 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.679 and let me explain. And application programming interface is a 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:04.520 set processes, functions, libraries, and other assets that act as 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:08.000 a foundation for developers who want to create programs for 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:12.800 a specific platform, like a specific operating system. So you've 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.199 got a base set of functions on a computer that 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:20.320 operate directly on the hardware itself. These are processes that 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.240 might be hard coded into the physical circuits of that machine. 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.320 And in the old days, that's how all programming had 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.240 to be done. You actually had to make physical changes 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:33.680 to a machine by unplugging cables and plugging them into 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.399 other sockets and things like that, in order to change 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:39.960 the programming in order to make it do something differently, 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:43.600 like if you wanted to add numbers and stuff subtract them. 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:47.159 These days, we have layers of firmware and software that 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:51.320 helped manage all these interactions between the program you're running 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.160 and the underlying hardware that's supplying all the assets that 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:59.240 make that program possible. This way, programmers don't have to 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:03.600 have a d understanding of the underlying hardware. They don't 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.320 have to change that hardware. They just need to work 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:09.159 within the parameters of those other layers. They just need 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:12.680 to follow the rules. In other words, So if you'd 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.520 like an analogy, or even if you don't, I'll compare 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:18.800 it to building a house. So imagine you walk up 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:22.040 to a building site and someone's already laid a bare 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.879 concrete foundation there, but there's nothing else there. That's it. 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.720 You get there, there's a foundation, nothing else is at 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:31.680 your disposal. It's up to you to figure out how 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:34.200 to build a house. You have to get all the 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:36.440 stuff yourself. You have to figure it all out, maybe 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:38.479 through trial and error. There's no one there to help you. 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:42.520 That would be very frustrating. Or imagine you walk up 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:45.520 to a building site. There's the foundation, but there's also 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:48.720