The Computer Chronicles - Notebook Computers (1992)

[@mrflamewars]

PCMCIA = People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

[@Finallybianca]

Thats how I was tought in High School

[@jeffyp2483]

​@@Finallybiancamoney for nothing, chicks for free, i want my TLA(s)

[@captainkeyboard1007]

These computer shows make me miss the old computers and peripherals I never had chances to try, and using the modern microcomputer and computer printer myself. I wish The Computer Chronicles show would be on today.

[@GregoryRCosta]

Love seeing that a ThinkPad is still recognizable as a ThinkPad 27 years later. The TrackPoint blows those unwieldy navigation devices out of the water.

[@yelapa999]

"It's a true 8 ½ by 11 unit… (with screen bezels as thick as your wrist." Loved those days!

[@pedazodeboludo]

I had a Canon BJ-10ex portable printer. The document feeder almost always jammed so I used it as a paperweight :)

[@Monosekist]

Some of this advice still holds true when looking at a laptop.

[@Sauceyjames]

@18:00 we get a ThinkPad 700C and my man botched introducing the TrackPoint! 😩 Earlier there was an N45 SL at the Leximark booth. I like how they didn't announce that they took over IBM's printer/keyboard division at this time

[@wallacelang1374]

I remember that during the early 1990s the terms laptop and notebook were interchangeable when concerning computers. However nowadays the terms are very well definded.

[@SWRadioConcepts]

Why was David Bowie teaching us about laptops?

[@jub8891]

haha.. i didnt know what you were talking about until i saw him

[@Wok_Agenda]

He was max headroom once

[@normanvaliao]

Good one!😆

[@jessesan2003]

David Bowie's illegitimate son. 🤔

[@giancarlochiappe2418]

"Desktop computer days are numbered" LOL

[@camhusmj38]

In Business, most people do get laptops nowadays- let’s you work at home and in office and hot desk etc. Business computing is not done on desktops these days.

[@tommyeastwood4393]

Gaming changed it all.

[@totoroben]

Well you gotta understand too computers used to be expensive and usually there would be one computer per household, if that in 1992. Laptops were less powerful, the screens weren't as good as CRTs, and were much more expensive. If you wanted to have a computer in your house, you'd have a desktop during this time period, and laptops were very business oriented during this time. Laptops didn't go under $1000 until the year 2000 or so, and it wasn't uncommon for them to be $2000-$3000 during this time. You could get a much more capable desktop for under $1000. Another thing is you didn't really hear too much about lithium ion. These things ran on nicd batteries which had a lower power density, so even their battery life wasn't as good.

[@mcswabin207]

Is that the new Surface Pro 4 at the beginning?

[@Isaac-gh5ku]

Nope.

[@bikespj22]

That was my first thought 😂😂😂 they put that shit out acting like it's innovative, but here it is in 1992

[@juancastellon7183]

Interesting that they said desktops were endangered in the early 1990s. I still use a desktop for gaming and when writing larger documents as the bigger display is easier to ready.

[@Lachlant1984]

Not to mention you have a better keyboard (in theory). Now that we have USB-C and docking stations are so cheap and small and offer lots of expansions, I can see the logic in using a notebook PC as your primary computer, but I still don't want to. I have a notebook PC, but when at home I almost never use it and I mostly use my desktop PC.

[@juancastellon7183]

@@Lachlant1984definitely a better keyboard. Using a Unicom Model M. No notebook keyboard matches that. ⌨️

[@Lachlant1984]

@@juancastellon7183 Indeed not. I think even my cheap Microsoft wired keyboard I used to use is better in some ways than a laptop keyboard as its keys have more travel, I'm sometimes quite aggressive when typing on a keyboard, so I really do notice when a keyboard's keys don't have much travel.

[@floydjohnson7888]

8:56 Chiefet went for the comedic gold

[@Tommymang]

“The days are numbered of the desktop pc …. “ … Still not in 2021

[@Catrik]

5:22 what is that printer It sounds like she is saying "milwrite from xsonics" but I can't find anything.

[@floydjohnson7888]

9:47: Three years later, I saw PCMCIA modems at least twice as fast as that one.

[@NineteenEightyFive]

The thinkpad was (and still is) amazing

[@callecam]

Killed the competition in this video.

[@ilcool90]

Connecting to Internet trough an air phone, your credit card bill will be as high as the altitude you are traveling on.

[@ramasamystudios4101]

are you still alive in 2024?

[@ilcool90]

@@ramasamystudios4101 I am.

[@EeveeFromAlmia]

Honestly, the way the notebook computers are being advertised sound more appealing than my day-to-day Surface tablet; despite being the exact same breed of machine and purpose. Maybe the old ones just seem way more fun and new. Makes me wonder if I was the same age then as I am now if I would own and use it the same as I use my tablet now.

[@mrarcadia]

13:13 this lady got it so right.

[@opulenceluxury8548]

She is an oracle, way before her time.

[@one_step_sideways]

It was obvious it was going to go that way. Now if she said "you would all become mindless sheep with ADHD consuming TikTok garbage" it would have been actually prophetic

[@tamasdemjen4242]

Watching this on my color portable. It's not upgradeable though, I cannot add a co-processor.

[@neoasura]

I wonder why the Lexmark Minibook at 1:30 never took off, those specs were awesome! For such a small laptop or its time and amazing battery life. You wouldnt see laptops that size for years to come

[@oldtwins]

indeed it looks ahead of its time.

[@straightpipediesel]

Storage. This was before SSDs. All you got was 1 MB total of battery-backed RAM, all your programs and data had to fit into that.

[@medes5597]

There were actually a few palm tops that were similarly impressive. They however all failed because of storage or power. Their with storage had next to no power, those with power had next to no storage. We didn't crack that balance for a long time.

[@mrarcadia]

11:10 - The PC is an endangered species. Oh buddy, you were so wrong...

[@drygnfyre]

He was extremely ambitious, but I agree with him overall. Notebooks nowadays are relative easy to expand to desktop replacements. If he predicted 20 years instead of "the near future", he'd have been spot on.

[@dylanchadderton1]

0:30 The SufaceBooks great great great great grandpa

[@almostliterally593]

I like how everyone is SO FOCUSED on using laptops on a plane...who wants to work on a plane?!?

[@oldtwinsna8347]

As I recall, this was still the time middle managers were allowed to fly in business class.

[@SFJayAnt]

That thinkpad is a beauty

[@Thirsty_Fox]

I'd wager a lot of people wouldn't be able to tell my 2015 Lenovo Thinkpad from that 1992 IBM ThinkPadat 19:15.

[@wizzardoo6228]

Good thing , Desktops still live.

[@one_step_sideways]

There's no need for a desktop anymore. That's why your average joe would go for a laptop to use Office apps, even if he isn't going to take his laptop anywhere

[@ctcards2636]

Anyone find a link with more info on that Lexmark Mini-Book ? Id love to read up more on it.

[@CloneShockTrooper]

love this program! pure nostalgia! :-D

[@yrsdiid2408]

This is the first thinkpad?

[@8BitNaptime]

Later that day he went looking for Sarah Connor's son...

[@lookingjust987654321]

sorry it took 25 years for enough people to get the idea. RIP Comp Chronicles. (A Bay Area, Silicon Valley innovator...)

[@megabojan1993]

Portable printers just didn't caught on like portable computers did. And that battery life of just able to print 25 in one charge is too low.

[@Catrik]

And one of the laptops have 40hr battery life. On AA's.

[@medes5597]

They did. Just not in consumer markets. It was a $800 million a year business market for IBM in 1996. Consumer wise, no but why would we need them?

[@Roman-nu1om]

damn I want that Olivetti shown at the beginning

[@jeremyjohnson8844]

"It's better than a mouse..." LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

[@jacoboblandonpineda]

Jeremy Johnson I would've completely agreed if they were comparing it with trackballs or trackpads. But the mouse? There's no fucking way a TrackPoint can beat a regular mouse.

[@user-ve3gh5xg9q]

a wonderful period when people lived in the IT industry 24 hours a day. It was a beautiful feeling. Companies such as ID Software did their best to feed our constantly hungry machines🤫☺️♥️

[@normanvaliao]

Can't imagine how technology evolves and progress so fast. Smartphones nowadays are much more and even way more powerful than these portable laptops.

[@tr1p1ea]

... it's 30 years later.... 1 that's a long time and 2 why would they not be faster. So many comments about phones on these vids, they aren't thr advanced technology you think they are.

[@jcp012000]

19:41 Back when Saul Goodman was a computer salesman

[@EnronnSierra]

Amazing how these things were tanks. I got a couple vintage Dells recently. They are from about 2001 and even those looked really big and chunky. I'm sure people will say the same about todays notebooks in 20 years too.

[@infinitecanadian]

30$ for a half-hour programme on videocassette? Ouch...

[@Sauceyjames]

It was like that for years! I think maybe in the mid 2000's they switched to DVD and it was still the same price 😅

[@jeffyp2483]

i remember the 'eraser head' trackpoint. i remember upon first seeing it that it was neat, but i couldnt imagine it being something i would like. i used them sometime after that, and didnt like it. i did like it as a fallback.

[@richardfeynman5560]

Ah, Trackballs! In German we callled them Dreckballs (Dreck=Dirt) for some good reason...;-)

[@pavy415]

When technology back then in the 90s looked better than today even the printers were beasts then smh 🤷🏽

[@WhatALoadOfTosca]

Baby...

[@schizogony]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/a3bamouFiqmiZpY

[@sam-di3cw]

It runs on AA batteries, sounds like a kids toy to me.

[@tr1p1ea]

"Apple invented the touchscreen with the iPhone" - Apple fans

[@tr1p1ea]

Good stuff!

[@AlexSage]

11:07 it's 2023 and still using desktop computers, cuz they're more powerful...

[@BAZFANSHOTHITSClassicTunes]

You can esily lift the leg up and steal the laptop and figure out removing the lock afterwards. No security at all.

[@codemonkey2311]

Peter otte was wrong desktop is not an endangered species

[@MrRabb1ts]

11:13 Nice attitude on laptops taking over as main computers. Laptops and tablets have yet to fix their heat issues when it comes to using them.

[@tommyeastwood4393]

If youre Talking about gaming... Youre right.

[@billn.1318]

3:12 she was correct of the future

[@larsfladmark2482]

I'm jealous. My laptop doesn't have a PCMCIA slot.

[@jessesan2003]

Stewart's comb over, who is he kidding😁👴

[@zeusgb]

A HP cartridge that prints 500 pages :O surely not it must be witchcraft.

[@tr1p1ea]

... modern cartridges do approx the same (480 pages)

[@elgeneralxx]

What if steve cheifet just went ham and said "heres what i think of your computer!!" And slams it smashing it in the desk in front of them

[@Monosekist]

and now we have Linus Tech Tips coverage of CES.

[@jub8891]

unfortunately

[@Finallybianca]

@Aslin Fire Safety he would drop everything

[@trs-80fanclub12]

I should have listened to this guy, hell I didnt know A desktop is obsolete... I just tossed 1800 into this case!

[@kickstartnetworking3347]

I have always found laptops uncomfortable to work with.

[@lazyfreedom98]

Harvard goes digital.

[@NrdGamr-mq7gs]

40 hours for battery life?? What?? My new laptop runs 10 hours🤣same as my android even lesser than that when I'm using data on internet.

[@one_step_sideways]

It's calculator tech basically, nothing like a proper laptop with proper processors with the full x86_64 infrastructure set, which have high idle power consumption. That's why Apple tried switching to the ARM architecture - because they know their computers aren't used for any actual important work with important legacy operations or industrial design and because ARM tech has gone a long way that they made it viable with very good single-core performance. Keep in mind that their ARM laptops are used primarily for mindless typing in Facebook and whatever, making them severely overpriced for use as a glorified typewriter.

[@Fastwinstondoom]

Desktops an endangered species eh? Thankfully that marketing prophecy didn't come true!

[@minuteman259]

Why did we need portable printers back in the 90s again?

[@Zedek]

My friend's father had one. He worked for SIEMENS and would print out bills directly at the customer site or other documents. Saves you a secretary (and you can probably bill it to the customer as hourly work fee sitting there and typing 20 minutes xD)

[@oldtwinsna8347]

Email and graphically imagery exchange was not commercially standardized so there was no such thing as "just send me the receipt online"

[@holographicSquid]

Don't copy that floppy!!

[@AnythingButOrdinary69]

dont copy that floppy

[@di3appl3]

Thank god for chinese manufactured. Computers and computer accesories are cheaper now. No way people can afford this with todays minimum wages even back then the minimu wages was $4.25.

[@stormgirl09]

lol its just now desktops are becoming endangered. :D The laptop in the beginning reminds me of the ultrabook of the 90s. O.O I have an ultrabook. Also i like the little screens on the back of plane seats they are cool but the touch screens on them suck. Im so used to using smartphones tablets and touch screen laptops that i forget that not all touch screens a touch sensitive like our smartphones O.O

[@RonKuzyk]

NICE FUCKING COMPUTERS!!!

[@deltakid0]

XD

[@XxsoonerbornxX]

Peter was doing well until he made the stupid statement about desktops.

[@Abr3200]

Wait a minute... So Apple didn't invent the Tablet?

[@harveyblackwood3563]

Not really. There were already tablets in the 90s. The appearance of the tablets we see today is kinda similar to the concept of tablets in the movie 2001: Space Odyssey which is a 60s movie.

[@Aryeh-o]

18:50 - why the trackpoint wins random access - mildly transgender looking chadette who ran from 90s action movies

[@dogriffiths]

I had a Canon BJ-10. Awful.