Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!laird
From: laird@think.com (Laird Popkin)
Subject: Re: Why so little variety?
Message-ID: <1991May8.192620.18927@Think.COM>
Keywords: notebooks wishes
Sender: news@Think.COM
Reply-To: laird@think.com
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
References: <1991May7.000748.18429@xanadu.com>
Date: Wed, 8 May 91 19:26:20 GMT

In article <1991May7.000748.18429@xanadu.com> ravi@xanadu.com (Ravi Pandya) writes:
>With several dozen different 386sx notebooks out there, why are they
>all almost identical? Why isn't some manufacturer getting the idea
>that they should look for a niche that twenty other companies aren't
>already going for? I can find essentially one machine which fits each
>of my major requirements/desires, and none that meets them all:
>
>OVER 10 Mb RAM -- only the Tandon (and its OEMs) does this, and only
>Tandon uses *industry*standard* memory expansion that doesn't cost an
>arm and a leg. I could expand it to 16Mb for one third the cost of 4Mb
>for a Compaq LTE 386s (admittedly an extreme example). Are laptop
>manufacturers going to have to learn all over again the sense of using
>standard SIMMs instead of expensive proprietary schemes? I thought
>we'd been through this once with the desktop manufacturers. Or are we
>simply at the beginning of the formation of another de facto standard?
>What might it turn out to be?

Right now, standard SIMMS are all DRAM, whereas the ultra-low power
portable computers use wither SRAM or pseudo-SRAM.  It would be nice if
SRAM or p-SRAM started appearing on standard SIMMs, since it would then
become more of an end-user commodity.  Of course the SIMM would have to be
slightly different, to keep people from frying their RAM or motherboards...

>BUILT-IN POINTING DEVICE -- only the Olivetti, with its touch pad.
>Everyone is touting 386sx notebooks as portable Windows machines, yet
>no one is delivering them with a pointing device. The Microsoft/
>Logitech alternative is ugly, awkward, and inconvenient. You have to
>remove it when you close the case, and then you have another piece to
>carry, along with a bunch of tangled cables. The laptop store down the
>street has a tiny, very precise 1/4" trackball that would take up
>maybe 0.5 cubic inches if it were built-in. The Outbound Mac portable
>has the Isopoint, which I've found to be very useable, and you never
>have to take your hands off the keyboard. Some manufacturer should
>give these a try. I suspect they're all sitting on their hands waiting
>to see what somebody else does, and whether it sells. That somebody
>else may make a pile of money.

There are a number of laptop computers with pointing devices built in.  THe
Portable Macintosh has a trackball built into it's keyboard.  There is a
GRID laptop with what they claim is an "improved" Isopoint(TM).  There are
also laptops with touchpads as pointing devices, such as the M100 and M200
from Psion, and I remember a laptop with a touchpad being described in
_great_ detail in Byte back in '84 or so.

>EXTERNAL FLOPPY -- only the Commax Ultrathin. Of all the 386sx
>notebooks, it is by far the lightest (4 lbs), and smallest (8.25" x
>10.25" x 1.25"). An external floppy drive is included in the price. I
>rarely need a floppy, and I'd be happy to leave the external drive on
>my desk and carry 2 lbs less under my arm. If the Commax could be
>expanded beyond 4Mb, and had a coprocessor socket, I'd buy it
>instantly. Isn't portability what it's all about? Or was the market
>research on the Sharp 6220 so compelling that no one thinks they can
>sell one without a built-in floppy? I suspect that there are simply
>two segments - people who want everything in one box to carry around
>all the time, and people who want to carry around as little as
>possible. Doesn't it make sense to serve one market better, at the
>expense of the other, and establish a niche? Furthermore, I suspect a
>clever industrial designer could figure out how to make a detachable
>floppy with a clamping connector so that it could be carried with the
>main unit.

I think that the current logic is that the '386 draws so much power that it
doesn't make sense to try to save a little power by eliminating the floppy
drive, and that anyone buying a '386 is a "power user" would would want a
floppy drive.  Personally, I agree with you -- I'd be happy to buy a
portable with nothing but a hard drive and an ethernet port and a fast
serial port for LapLinking.

>A 9600 baud MNP/v.42bis internal modem would also be nice -- I don't
>know of anyone who offers that. However, I can stand to have an
>external pocket modem, since I would have to be tethered to a phone
>anyway.
>
>I suspect I may end up going with the Tandon, since I can't get my
>work done with less memory, and I can suffer with an awkward trackball
>and some extra weight. On the other hand, I may just wait and see if
>something better turns up...
>	--ravi

IF you don't mind waiting, there should be some fantastic PenPoint and
PenWindows machines coming out over the next few months.  It's only money,
right?

- Laird Popkin, Thinking Machines

Connection Machine: Massively parallel supercomputer.  Also a cool black
cube with more blinking lights than you can shake a stick at.