Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
Toshiba T1000 - Svelte and Affordable Portable Computing From 1987
By James Grahame
Apple introduced a new line of almost affordable MacBooks yesterday, so I knew there was no way we'd get through the week without mentioning some sort of portable computer. With that in mind, allow us to introduce the Toshiba T1000. This little PC-compatible turned the world on its ear when released in 1987.
It included a monochrome LCD screen, one 720K floppy drive, and 512K or 640K of RAM. The processor was an Intel 80C88 running at a dazzling 4.77 MHz. Microsoft DOS 2.11 was embedded in ROM, so start-up was quick and uneventful. The entire package weighed a mere 6.4 lbs and featured a sleek (for the day) clamshell design and CGA video port (four garish colors).
The T1000 listed for $999, although it was often available for a few hundred dollars less. All in all, it proved to be the ideal price/performance mix for many students and professionals. And the T1000 was definitely much more portable than many of its contemporaries like the chunky Amstrad PPC 640.
