Adam Osborne, the man behind the first portable computer, has died. He sold tens of thousands of the Osborne-1, which at 23 pounds barely qualified as portable, and then jinxed himself by making a mistake that no smart computer company has made since:
Osborne boasted in early 1983 of an improved second generation of his product — months before it was ready to ship. Sales of older models of his portable sewing-machine-sized computers plummeted. The inventory build-up that resulted led Osborne Computer to collapse in September 1983.
Isn’t it crazy that portable computers have only been around for a couple of decades?
