The Computer Chronicles - Portable Computers (1987)

Special thanks to archive.org for hosting these episodes. Downloads of all these episodes and more can be found at: archive.org/det...

[@JasonMasque13]

I was too poor to own these as an 80s kid. Now, I want all these old machines. These guys were so happy and excited about technology.

[@Chevroletcelebrity]

computer not expensive now you can get u one at wall mart for a few hundreds

[@therealbluedragon]

This is a fascinating piece of history. My god how far we've come.

[@prizedcoffeecup]

Indeed. We've gone from having 16 to 128 KB computers that rarely had expandable storage options that weren't cumbersome to being able to stuff 1 TB hard drives into Aspire Ones if we really cared to for some reason and having flash drives up to 128 GB instead of KB.

[@80sCompaqPC]

MichaelKingsfordGray You seriously need to find something better to do than bash people for not using their real name. What damn difference does it make? It’s just KZbin, for crying out loud.

[@zizmares]

@MichaelKingsfordGray who the fuck uses their real name on youtube? Any of your beloved youtubers use their real names? This isn't facebook you good for nothing idiot. Yeah that's right, only an idiot would use their real name here, if I used mine you couldn't even read the god damn thing

[@mathiastwp]

@MichaelKingsfordGray As we say in Norway: "Blew from the right ass"

[@dylanchadderton1]

Just imagine where well be in another 50 years

[@rmeyer4066]

I think we all would like to have a 20 megabyte hard disk...

[@TheLouisXXI]

+Ryan Meyer look! One 1TB isn't enough anymore

[@rmeyer4066]

6TB will do for me

[@Landrew0]

+Ryan Meyer In 1988, I heard the word "terabyte" for the first time, and I knew Moore's Law would get us there by now, but I still couldn't really believe it.

[@rmeyer4066]

Landrew0 At CES 2017 seagate revealed a 60 terabyte SSD that will be out by the end of the year.

[@ProDigit80]

According to the subs, he said 'nigga byte harddisk'!

[@IntoTheMindlessAbyss]

R.I.P. Gary Kildall..

[@vwestlife]

At least the Dynamac didn't crash during its demo on the show, unlike Apple's own Macintosh Portable a few years later!

[@themoviedealers]

5:41 - "Our new product line, the cellular telephone..." (Lifts up 20 pound bowling ball bag from underneath desk) LOL.

[@sergheiadrian]

That was kind of unexpected for the "ultimate portability" :)

[@crayon-u3q]

Still my favorite is when they both agree it would be nice to have 20mb....LOL

[@sbkpilot1]

lmfao..

[@ElderBard00]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@bikespj22]

I laughed when he said the laptop was no more cumbersome than a few binders. Then talks about having a fax and printer. I was like buuuulllll that thing for sure weighs a freaking ton.

[@ElderBard00]

The more I watch this channel, it really hits home how far we've come in the IT world. 👍🏼

[@jimtaylor201]

It's amazing how much of a step back/sacrifice portables were back then when compared to desktops of the time and the cost was ridiculous.

[@Turborider]

I have an Toshiba T1100 Plus. Awesome to see it in the Computer Chronicles 1987.

[@rogermullins3367]

Love the 3:30 mark when the guy sits down at the customer's desk and busts out the computer... and disk drive... and printer... :-) These shows are amazing - thanks so much for keeping them available!

[@zero00tolerance]

It's amazing how far technology went, I am watching this video with the latest i7 processor 16 GB ram etc etc. and 40 years from now my comp will be obsolete and kids will laugh at me for being low tech.

[@raven4k998]

this guy said he found a way to run his old computers 10 times faster using a usb stick odds are he just wants your money

[@bikespj22]

"You mean you have to use your hands, that's like a babys toy"

[@marckferrari]

@@raven4k998 correct if he's got the right Linux distro on it

[@raven4k998]

@@marckferrari oh he's got the right one he looks like a pro who knows what he wants and needs

[@davidt8087]

I don't think today's computers will be low tech 20 years from now. Unless ppl move to having star trek holpdecks in their rooms, we will still be watching youtube except everyone will be watching in 4k. 8k Will still only have 10-20% support even 20 years from now. And increasing speeds won't make a difference either way. We are already peaking hard. Higher resolution screens or videos for example are pointless as the difference between 4k and 8k to our eyes won't really be much anyway. So things will remain static. Everything in life is like this. Eventually a peak is reached and it remains that way for a long time

[@wallacelang1374]

Portable Computers in the 1980s were designed to be a supplement to the use of an office computer, but now in the 2020s a Portable Computer is now an alternative to an office computer instead. However I still enjoy watching these The Computer Chronicles episodes.

[@Splenda257]

I am watching this video in bed on my cellular phone.

[@idlehour]

A phone with more capability than the first air craft sent into space

[@ChristopherGray00]

@@idlehour people say that for dramatic effect but it doesn't mean much, back in the apollo 11 days computers were extremely crude and rudementary, a 386 in the 80s is around ~200+ times faster, so that's not impressive at all really. what is more impressive is when you compare early 90s 486 chips to modern phones today, because at that point in the 90s we had a pretty good idea of chip design and it was no longer a brand new concept, yet we have evolved so astoundingly far from even that stage.

[@Rickt2445]

Hello from 2024

[@Big_Tex]

It’s the Sci-Fi future in 2024 and my iPhone 12 has 1x the power it had 3 years ago when I bought it 🛰️

[@nobots27]

I wonder how things will change in the next 30 years from now. Pretty incredible. I love watching these videos every now and then.

[@ChatGPT1111]

Yeah, this didn't age well. Only 20% in and we're fully across the dystopia threshold.

[@DanzRdy]

I don’t think you’ll like what’s coming in 30 years, ie. Complete AI takeover of 80% of jobs, AI bots everywhere with inability to distinguish humans vs bots at least on the surface, programmable matter (6/7G), pre-crime curves based off of AI brain interface via devices we carry or other medium, need I go further?

[@mancavehobbies6213]

2024 not much really

[@videooblivion]

I miss this style of computer journalism. Also, good keyboards on laptops and Gary Kildall.

[@dzonikg]

8 Hour off batery life..most new laptops in 2016 can only dream about it

[@Jookeypuke]

5:41 What are you gonna do with that thing? Call in an airstrike?

[@jcp012000]

Man that was great haha!!

[@mcmouse92]

"It's no more cumbersome than a case of binders." Haha, that's enormous!

[@vashsonic]

I really like the main host. It's also interesting to see this tech talked about as cutting edge, it helps show the ideas behind our current tech and philosophy's of the company's that make them.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Stewart Cheifet has a degree in mathematics and psychology and Gary Kildall programmed CP/M (which was copied to make MS-DOS) and GEM (a graphical interface for DOS years before Windows)

[@TurboRonin83]

No wonder why 80s people were so in shape. Those laptops were as heavy as barbell plates.

[@looneyburgmusic]

For LAN parties I used to have a desktop computer/monitor that I "converted" to be "portable" - drilled some holes into the top of the cases and mounted handles ;-)

[@smilingskull7827]

I used to record this show on my VCR and then watch it when I got home from work. Great times!

[@unnamedchannel1237]

@interlace84I used to hate renting DVD’s the last person never rewound the disk

[@afrohead2192]

I love old tech

[@Saerek]

"I think we'd all like a 20MB hard disk! haha". Wow.

[@jesuszamora6949]

+Saerek You gotta admit, it seems absolutely quaint now. I don't think I had half of that on my Tandy back then.

[@ElderBard00]

32MB of RAM was the bomb at some point 😅

[@yovtobe]

@@ElderBard00 Oh it certainly was. Like back when starcraft came out -it needed 16mb of ram (and our pc had only a 486/66 with 8mb - which was excellent in 1992 - but not so much by the win95 era ).

[@ElderBard00]

@@yovtobe ohh man. The good old days. Gonna nostalgic for bit now. StarCraft was a huge deal for me back then.

[@Chevroletcelebrity]

when I had my old 286 deskpro with dual 360k disk drives any sized hard drive would've been nice.

[@Finallybianca]

Damn remember as a kid salivating over that Tandy at the radio shack at the Mall of the Bluffs in Council Bluffs IA back in the good ol days

[@Landrew0]

"...our new product 'grunt' our cellular telephone." 5:24

[@ComputerChroniclesYT]

winchester disks, a common name used for the old magnetic storage disks on old IBM mainframes. the disk was basically one sealed unit which allowed for greater speeds.

[@Dorelaxen]

I have one of those Tandy laptops. Still works perfectly.

[@prizedcoffeecup]

Cool! Hoping it stays healthy for many more years past it's current age.

[@draem_seekr]

Amazing how technology has progressed the past 26 years.

[@ChatGPT1111]

Amazing how everything else has REGRESSED in the past 9 years.

[@Wiesolator]

I like this old recordings, according to this today actual Aps. This was a lot of ground-digging for today soft, never forgot this :)

[@helloSanders]

Back in the days when computers were such specialty business tools.... so bizarre where we are now by comparison XD

[@theslimeylimey]

Kids today have no appreciation of how good their hardware is.

[@Lurker1979]

Amazing how far we have come!

[@AriannaEuryaleMusic]

OMG!, I cracked myself up at 5:36 when he was talking about connection to a Cell phone, so I picture a regular cellphone and then he brings this humongous brick.. I was like "WTF!! is thaT! " haha Gosh! Cell Phones were bigger than actual computers!

[@loafofbread-theoriginal8369]

i think that cellphone was bigger than their portable computers ALREADY haha

[@LordHorst]

Right now, we are on the way back to those clunky cell phones. For years they have gotten smaller and smaller, and now it's the other direction. Smartphone, Tablet, "Phablet" (which apparently "fills the gap between smartphone and tablet"?).

[@marckferrari]

Often they were bound to a car and usually called "car phones." My dad has one in the early 90s

[@JanuszKrysztofiak]

Not only were they bulky, they were analog, not digital.

[@ProDigit80]

7:36 captions: "..I think we all like to have a nigga byte hard disk.. hehe.."

[@freaker126]

too bad we can't go back in time. I'll luv to see their faces when they see our latest laptops. Although, back then, it seems such exciting time for laptop and pc lovers. i luv this shows!

[@kingcrimson234]

Oh man I laughed when he pulled out the cell phone at 5:38

[@celticlofts]

As late as 1996 I was still using a dial-up connection. I later got a shotgun modem that needed 2 telephone lines to work. I would then get a combined connection of around 1mb or thereabouts using both modems. I think I was using a Micron 386 computer at the time.

[@davidt8087]

1megabjt or 1 megabyte per second in 1996? 1 megabyte/s in 1996 is like fkn 10gigaBYTE per second today. What kind of modem was this? Surely it didn't use ethernet? In 2004 or so we had like 320kbytes per second. And that was fast. How did you get 1 megabytes per second in 96? I don't believe you? Most people had 56k even in 2005

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@davidt8087 I remember some people linking their ISDN lines to get blistering 128 kbit at the cost of not being able to recieve calls simultaneously.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

@@davidt8087 Dual bonded modems only got you 56kbps*2 theoretical. 1996 cable modems were available and got about 1-3 mbps normally.

[@thedivinityman]

My first computer did not even have a HDD, all the data was stored on a cassette tape, a floppy for smaller files, it had a 1.023 MHz processor, and a whopping 64 Kb of RAM a 20 kb ROM that stored the Operating System. Second computer had no HDD 2 floppy drives, cassette reader, 512 kb RAM, don't know the ROM size for the Operating System, and still a 1.023 MHz Processor it is just amazing how far we have come BTW both those computers are more powerful than the computers used to go to the moon

[@TRLTheRandomLab]

RIP Gary Kildall

[@paullim0314]

3:34 when the Disk Drive is much bigger than the printer.

[@soulpaladin7866]

The CD ROM Drive, which was used in PCs in the beginning, was also that big.

[@Dreihme]

It's just amazing that this wasn't all that long ago . . .

[@thomasanderson1416]

Please Stewart bring back the Computer Chronicles again, if only for one last episode 😢

[@dg-hughes]

I remember these days everyone was so giddy at this new personal computer thing, then 1990 boom! the Internet and then about three or four years later boom! the Web browser. The closest thing today seems to be 3D printers.

[@Kashaku3]

and now virtual reality

[@hallerd]

Kashaku3 and now bitcoin - $1 *****

[@dg-hughes]

***** Geez you're giving out money? I'll take whatever you are giving out Bitcoin Dogecoin Litecoin lol

[@hallerd]

David Hughes $1 *****

[@Kashaku3]

ungratefulmetalpansy yeah but it was shit. now its actually promising.

[@Tall_Order]

I miss Tandy. The days I used to actually go to radio shack. But then again I like the convenience of shopping online and getting huge deals on cables and accessories. 8 dollars for a USB to micro USB cable on Amazon, vs 35 dollars at radio shack. Yeah...

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Think I bought three of these cables for 4.99 in a local grocery stores a couple years back

[@mkzsdfjgf]

i love these computers they are super fast i am currently using one right now

[@bendixey961]

You're absolutely right these computers are fantastic

[@mkzsdfjgf]

+Ben Dixey who needs a battery when you have a mains lead

[@bendixey961]

+chris ingram exactly mate you can even use a cigarette charger in your car my mind has been blown away

[@mkzsdfjgf]

+Ben Dixey and don't forget that crystal clear display

[@bendixey961]

+chris ingram how could I ever forget that I'm predicting a major step forward in technology soon everyone will be using 3.5 inch floppy disks

[@TheStevenWhiting]

We have a laptop like the one he had on his lap at the start, in the safe at work. Its an old Amstrad and still works.

[@cwbh10]

" I think we'd all love to have a 20 Megabyte Hard Disc"... Oh if they could only see where we are now. My retina macbook pro, thin as can be with 16 Gigabytes of RAM, 4 cores, a dedicated video card, and a 1 Terabyte SSD. I can only imagine what it will be like 20 years from now!

[@DeusGladiorum]

It's been closer to 30 years since this aired.

[@sparticus214]

That laptop is bigger then my desk top.

[@ens8502]

Dont be so smart mouth, you had to wait for it 25 years

[@TheStevenWhiting]

The look on the Apple guys face when he thought he'd just busted the prototype :)

[@macdunlap6257]

I sold the grid tempest years before this

[@Dirtfire]

Great upload. We've come so far.

[@8RmaN8]

I have that zenith!!! Its sitting only 10 feet from me right now! Still works too.

[@lanabyk8012]

Those are nice portable computers....Are they selling them yet?

[@looneyburgmusic]

This is one of the episodes I wish they could go back and do a follow-up TCC for, just to see how the things being said so long ago held up against what we have today...

[@cooldude23407]

Little did they know that one's phone would have more power than what they were holding :P

[@yellowblanka6058]

Nor that people would use all that computing power to post insipid photos of every aspect of their day/every thought that pops into their head on Instagram/Facebook etc.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

Heck, this was 1987 and so the Cray Y-MP supercomputer was still a year away, to be the fastest in the world, and now your typical low-end phone surpasses that.

[@RogerQray]

"Called Electronic mail" God I'm old

[@MirceaD28]

people!! Every time you turn on your phone, laptop, PC... is these guys to thank them

[@ryantuck4682]

That last Toshiba guy sunk like the titanic, poor lad. Basically sold them on the zenith.

[@toddhanson4583]

5:45. That cell phone had me laughing out loud.

[@Ridley369]

Why?

[@weedcity6751]

Count (male) or countess (female) is a title in European countries for a noble of varying status, but historically deemed to convey an approximate rank intermediate between the highest and lowest titles of nobility.[1] The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes-in its accusative comitem-meaning “companion”, and later “companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor”.

[@ikaika5107]

And as we laugh now on our grandpas' 30 year old technology, same way our grandkids will laugh on our iMac 5K after 30 years...

[@rsr789]

Portable computing: it'll never take off.

[@stormgirl09]

that first potable computer they shown is like the first ever tablet computer even if it wasnt touch screen and had real keys.

[@mushafasa]

i like when he's talking and it just says "chronic" behind him

[@AdmiralBison]

resolution 640 x 400. not too bad. I think I saw that as a resolution option on some PC I was fixing only 2 years ago. impressive graphic bars at 19:00 and looks like it generates those figures pretty fast.

[@RRSYSinfo]

In 16.7 million colours compared to 14. Plus maybe 480x

[@xebek]

He's so right. We would all love to have a 20mb hard disk. Ah, someday...

[@JohnnyZenith]

Loving the mobile phone. Amazing to think how incredibly powerful my HTC One is compared to that.

[@joshuajealousy2294]

"i think we'd all like to have a 20MB hard disk." wow times have changed XDXD

[@KAILOONE]

right now we all would like 2 tb hard disk but 15 years from now people will want 100000tb hard disks xd

[@TheChrimboEffect]

***** brontobytes is where its at bro

[@wizzardoo6228]

***** How do you know?

[@ens8502]

Its still ok for most people on this planet

[@dallas-cole]

That popup floppy disk got me, I want one

[@jacobfield2214]

Haha, I have the later version of the NEC Multispeed, The Multispeed El, which has a backlight. Wish I had the modem and the battery though!

[@jacobfield2214]

It still works too!

[@CFL-TECH]

Amazing how the smartphone you may be using to watch this video has a better display than any portable back then.

[@marckferrari]

Better than .. anything back then!

[@biomed007]

Man I would love to get a hold of one of those cellular telephones briefcases. I’d be set with my business needs.

[@Jwdude123]

Best comb over ever.

[@Lurker1979]

Replace desktop machines. That has happen for a lot of us now. My main computer is a gaming laptop.

[@cosminmoldovan3526]

Imagine traveling back to '87, walking into that studio and opening a Macbook Air on that desk 😂

[@smithraymond09029]

"As Easy As 123..." word processing. I remember that!

[@VOXS2]

any shows like this after this long time programe ended? and if so whats there today in shows like this?

[@robertnussberger2028]

I got a white CB3-111 chromebook. I am thinking of one day plucking off all of my black chicklet keys and paint the letter keys white or white with a very very soft tint of grey and the other keys such as the enter, back space, shift, ctrl, home, volume keys darker grey but not too dark grey.

[@robertnussberger2028]

I had my chromebook for a while. I think I will customize it.

[@mikemeengs5720]

That electronic mail seems like a nifty idea!

[@virusdefence]

Thank you

[@weedcity6751]

the visuals are based on the computer programmers optics..whether smaller or bigger it worked anyway..

[@Jack-eu5vu]

0:16 what is the intro made with?

[@a.f.1587]

8:00 it's running at 9.54 MHz processor, a very fast processor. OMG it's hilarious to watch these videos now in 2020 :D

[@carfo]

Watching this particular episode on my iPhone is hilarious.

[@michaelcorcoran8768]

The iPhone wouldn't exist if it wasn't for these companies and their innovation.

[@gregbetts8057]

would have like a review of the sanyo lt16

[@itsjustscott1114]

yeah that 20mb drive is my dream to own one ..... all i have atm is a 10mb SCSI fullhight drive atm cant fit 2 in my referb AT case isnt big enough haha

[@Blackadder75]

I actually have one of those 10mb drives. the cover is gone, but it still runs when I plug it with a molex plug into a modern atx power supply. makes a great noise and my students love it. it says IBM on the front panel and 'Made in Singapore' on the back. Made by Seagate. Production date 11/84

[@Kazuo1G]

True. Although online usually meant connecting to a very VERY SMALL network of computers (Usually a BBS, or maybe even just someone else's single computer), and not the World Wide Web network we have today.

[@bluedragonfire4960]

I thought the Zenith computer looked pretty good. It's crazy how expensive laptops were back then.

[@donnellysurfer]

that is so true can buy a couple of laps for that price now

[@MrJ0mmy]

donnellysurfer and people are saying todays prices are high

[@randywatson8347]

+bluedragonfire 10 years later the toshiba libretto hit the market. Even by today's standards it is a very small laptop. I got the 70 CT.

[@michaelcorcoran8768]

Especially when you account for inflation and the purchasing power of a dollar at the time

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Computers in general were expensive. In the same year (1987) Tandy presented the 3000 HL, with XT compatibility, a 286, 640k memory included, and a monitor that can do 640x400 resolution in 4 colors and 320x200 in 16 colors for as little as $2699. They also had the 1000 XL with 8 MHz 286, 640k RAM, 720k floppy drive, PCjr and CGA compatible graphics, and a CM-5 monitor in christmas discount for just $1299 Not bad considering the 286 was only 7 years old at the time and the 386 was released only 2 years prior. That's like finding a system with an i7-7700 today for just $3400 KRW offered a computer with an 8088 8 MHz, a free socket for a 8087, 256k memory, a keyboard, and a 360k floppy drive for $395. Telecomputing in Australia hat a 16 MHz 386, 1 MB ram and a 30 MB hard drove for just $6969 In the UK Armstrad had atheir PC 1512 with an 8 MHz 8086, single floppy, 512 k RAM, a 10 MB hard drive, CGA compatible graphics, and a 16 color 640x200 monitor for £920 (just over £3000 in today's money)

[@soulpaladin7866]

12:16 retail price 2399??

[@loojishtc9899]

Imagine walking onto that set with a Mac Book! Or handing Garry a smartphone!

[@Blackadder75]

or a $35 raspberry pi that can do about the same as that $1000 macbook

[@VOXS2]

what year is this video programe ? And is this programe still continues?

[@weedcity6751]

Write a function escape(s,t) that converts characters like newline and tab into visible escape sequences like and \t as it copies the string t to s . Use a switch . Write a function for the other direction as well, converting escape sequences into the real characters.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

only newline or also carriage return?

[@helthuismartin]

Ive got the Toshiba T 1000 from 1987.

[@QuaaludeCharlie]

I have that Zenith 181 :) QC

[@Dolphinsz]

720k floppy disc lol that's less than MOST EMAILS! =D of today amazing :)

[@michaeldim1]

A light behind the LCD??? Like some sort of back... light????

[@nagwarg]

1987, date is mentioned at the end of the prog

[@ItsTonyAldo]

And here I am complaining about my i3.

[@bastardtubeuser]

4:15 you might laugh now but consider this, whats more tasteful and elegant ? turning up at a meeting and finger swiping a screen/phone while looking down in the same manner you see every bratty teen, disappointed commuter etc doing, or sitting down with a purpose built terminal only professional successful people use or would care to use. i know what i think.

[@michaelcorcoran8768]

Yeah but these products aren't made for Elegance they're made for utility, communication and productivity. All that said, at least these products mostly used the universal standards unlike Apple products which are tainted by so much proprietary limitations

[@ericwong432]

All the laptops are selling at the same srp today, if you can find it...