Fundamental Laptop And Portable Devices Innovation
COURTESY :- vrindawan.in
Wikipedia
A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper lid and the keyboard on the inside of the lower lid, although 2-in-1 PCs with a detachable keyboard are often marketed as laptops or as having a “laptop mode”. Laptops are folded shut for transportation, and thus are suitable for mobile use. They are so named because they can be practically placed on a person’s lap when being used. Today, laptops are used in a variety of settings, such as at work, in education, for playing games, web browsing, for personal multimedia, and for general home computer use.
As of 2022, in American English, the terms laptop computer and notebook computer are used interchangeably; in other dialects of English, one or the other may be preferred. Although the terms notebook computers or notebooks originally referred to a specific size of laptop (originally smaller and lighter than mainstream laptops of the time), the terms have come to mean the same thing and notebook no longer refers to any specific size.
Laptops combine many of the input/output components and capabilities of a desktop computer, including the display screen, small speakers, a keyboard, data storage device, pointing devices (such as a touch pad or pointing stick), with an operating system, a processor (Central processing unit (CPU)) and memory into a single unit. Most modern laptops feature integrated webcams and built-in microphones, while many also have touchscreens. Laptops can be powered either from an internal battery or by an external power supply from an AC adapter. Hardware specifications, such as the processor speed and memory capacity, significantly vary between different types, models and price points.
Design elements, form factor and construction can also vary significantly between models depending on the intended use. Examples of specialized models of laptops include rugged notebooks for use in construction or military applications, as well as low production cost laptops such as those from the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organization, which incorporate features like solar charging and semi-flexible components not found on most laptop computers. Portable computers, which later developed into modern laptops, were originally considered to be a small niche market, mostly for specialized field applications, such as in the military, for accountants, or traveling sales representatives. As portable computers evolved into modern laptops, they became widely used for a variety of purposes.
As the personal computer (PC) became feasible in 1971, the idea of a portable personal computer soon followed. A “personal, portable information manipulator” was imagined by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in 1968, and described in his 1972 paper as the “Dynabook”. The IBM Special Computer APL Machine Portable (SCAMP) was demonstrated in 1973. This prototype was based on the IBM PALM processor. The IBM 5100, the first commercially available portable computer, appeared in September 1975, and was based on the SCAMP prototype.
As 8-bit CPU machines became widely accepted, the number of portables increased rapidly. The first “laptop-sized notebook computer” was the Epson HX-20, invented (patented) by Suwa Seikosha’s Yukio Yokozawa in July 1980, introduced at the COMDEX computer show in Las Vegas by Japanese company Seiko Epson in 1981, and released in July 1982. It had an LCD screen, a rechargeable battery, and a calculator-size printer, in a 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) chassis, the size of an A4 notebook. It was described as a “laptop” and “notebook” computer in its patent.
The portable micro computer Portal of the French company R2E Micral CCMC officially appeared in September 1980 at the Sicob show in Paris. It was a portable microcomputer designed and marketed by the studies and developments department of R2E Micral at the request of the company CCMC specializing in payroll and accounting. It was based on an Intel 8085 processor, 8-bit, clocked at 2 MHz. It was equipped with a central 64 KB RAM, a keyboard with 58 alphanumeric keys and 11 numeric keys (separate blocks), a 32-character screen, a floppy disk: capacity = 140,000 characters, of a thermal printer: speed = 28 characters / second, an asynchronous channel, asynchronous channel, a 220 V power supply. It weighed 12 kg and its dimensions were 45 × 45 × 15 cm. It provided total mobility. Its operating system was aptly named Prologue.
The Osborne 1, released in 1981, was a luggable computer that used the Zilog Z80 CPU and weighed 24.5 pounds (11.1 kg). It had no battery, a 5 in (13 cm) cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen, and dual 5.25 in (13.3 cm) single-density floppy drives. Both Tandy/Radio Shack and Hewlett-Packard (HP) also produced portable computers of varying designs during this period. The first laptops using the flip form factor appeared in the early 1980s. The Dulmont Magnum was released in Australia in 1981–82, but was not marketed internationally until 1984–85. The US$8,150 (equivalent to $22,880 in 2021) GRiD Compass 1101, released in 1982, was used at NASA and by the military, among others. The Sharp PC-5000, Ampere and Gavilan SC released in 1983. The Gavilan SC was described as a “laptop” by its manufacturer, while the Ampere had a modern clamshell design. The Toshiba T1100 won acceptance not only among PC experts but the mass market as a way to have PC portability.
From 1983 onward, several new input techniques were developed and included in laptops, including the touch pad (Gavilan SC, 1983), the pointing stick (IBM ThinkPad 700, 1992), and handwriting recognition (Linus Write-Top, 1987). Some CPUs, such as the 1990 Intel i386SL, were designed to use minimum power to increase battery life of portable computers and were supported by dynamic power management features such as Intel Speed Step and AMD PowerNow! in some designs.
Displays reached 640×480 (VGA) resolution by 1988 (Compaq SLT/286), and color screens started becoming a common upgrade in 1991, with increases in resolution and screen size occurring frequently until the introduction of 17″ screen laptops in 2003. Hard drives started to be used in portables, encouraged by the introduction of 3.5″ drives in the late 1980s, and became common in laptops starting with the introduction of 2.5″ and smaller drives around 1990; capacities have typically lagged behind physically larger desktop drives.
Common resolutions of laptop webcams are 720p (HD), and in lower-end laptops 480p. The earliest known laptops with 1080p (Full HD) webcams like the Samsung 700G7C were released in the early 2010s.
Optical disc drives became common in full-size laptops around 1997; this initially consisted of CD-ROM drives, which were supplanted by CD-R, DVD, and Blu-ray drives with writing capability over time. Starting around 2011, the trend shifted against internal optical drives, and as of 2022, they have largely disappeared, but are still readily available as external peripherals.
A portable storage device (PSD) is a small hard drive designed to hold any kind of digital data. This is slightly different from a portable media player, which stores and plays music and movies.
Some are fixed size hard drives of 256GB, 320GB, etc. Newer units are expandable using 2.5″ laptop hard drives, allowing for an unlimited storage capacity, which is useful for video and images.
When travelling, a portable storage device may be a useful alternative to backing up or purging memory cards if a computer is unavailable for downloading.
One type of data that may be stored is digital photographs (RAW data), transferred from a digital camera.
Many PSDs will connect directly to a camera and copy the images, or they may provide a slot for a memory card to plug in, with or without a card reader device. Some early models allow the user to review the images on a colour screen, but at the top end of the market.