Check out the world's first laptop - the Osborne 1. No one in their right mind would ever buy this now except to put it in a museum. Still, it shows how the mobile industry has changed over the years. The Osborne 1 appeared in April 1981 - a good 25 years ago (and a year after I was born).

Powered by a 4.0 MHz Zilog Z80 processor (that's slower than most of today's microcontrollers!), Osborne ran the CP/M operating system. A playful 5" monitor was provided for it - no doubt a CRT. For all we know, it could've been a modified cathode ray oscilloscope - which would've been fun. Bundled with all of 64k RAM, Osborne sported dual 5-1/4" 91K floppy drives (anyone remember those? I still have a bunch of 5-1/4" floppies up in my attic).

This massive little fella weighed nearly 25 pounds and was available for US $1,795 - including bundled software worth $1,500 - including old time favorites like WordStar, Microsoft MBASIC and SuperCalc. Oh, you could even opt for a 300-baud modem or a double density drive for it. It's not everyday you see a laptop that needs a truck to lug it around. Ah, the good old times. I'm glad we aren't there anymore :)

(Link via Gadgetizer)