The Executive Computer (1985) | Hacker News Reader

The Executive Computer (1985)

nytimes.com

17 pointsnirvanis6 comments

Quite the blast from the past although it doesn't quite square with my recollections of the time. While the LCD screens of the time were pretty awful, I'm not sure I agree that "The word processing and spreadsheet packages commonly available for them are intended to accomplish tasks to which laptop computers are simply not well suited." Grey-on-grey LCD notwithstanding, a system like the DG/One was as suited to spreadsheets or word processing as a desktop.

My memory is that price was really the big issue. Laptops--as opposed to luggables--carried a big premium over desktop systems that were already (by today's standards) pretty pricey. It's probably also worth noting that most business travelers wouldn't have been able to connect to company systems from the road (and many wouldn't have had email anyway) so the utility of traveling with a computer in 1985 would have been pretty limited in most cases.

It's a matter of how you read that sentence, really - the apparently-intended meaning is that most of the software (word processing and spreadsheets) are intended to "accomplish tasks", something that the laptop of the day was ill-suited for (mostly because of the price), rather than to assist decision-making and so forth. The question then becomes "what good is an expensive 'executive computer' that only does what my secretary and Murray in Accounting need to do?"

Sorta disagree. The quoted paragraph seems to imply that there is something unique about laptops that make them unsuitable:

"Software is the real weak spot for laptops. If the machines were merely too expensive, especially in view of their limited display, they would still sell if they served an unbeatable function. But for that to be the case, special software would be needed. The word processing and spreadsheet packages commonly available for them are intended to accomplish tasks to which laptop computers are simply not well suited."

That said, that particular period of time was one when a lot of higher-level executives didn't use PCs--or even some sort of minicomputer-based office automation system--while the rank-and-file certainly did. In the late 80s, even at technology company, it wasn't uncommon for execs to have admins print out emails that they would write answers to by hand--which were them typed in and sent out by the admins.

I was lucky enough to have been around - and relatively well-funded enough - in those days, and quite a user of portables, as we called them (laptop was not yet in the vernacular). As a developer doing support for customer installations across the continent, it was vital for me to have my own computer with me. Writing bug-fixes in the hotel room in the evenings and then having very pleasant customer-paid lunches and so on the following day while the install proceeded - this was a big part of why I insisted my company not chintz out on the "field system" .. which in my case, over a period of the 80's and 90's meant I went through many of the greats: Grid, Atari, Osborne, Compaq, Winbook, Sabre, and then .. that fateful switch to Apple, of all people, when they released the tiBook.

So far, in the last decade and a half, as a laptop devotee it has been very, very hard to kick the Apple habit. There simply isn't anything like the MBP out there. There wasn't anything like the first tiBook, either. Its a class Apple seemingly own.

In hindsight, this article really brings back some memories, and as well gives a bit of a rear-view mirror look back at the way things progressed. I do recall, back in the days of the Grid machine (which I still hold dear as a device), that the only 'luggable'/'portable'/'laptop'-style people that I encountered in the air lounges were also mostly the developer types; i.e. Programmers, Systems Analysts, etc. It has sort of been with mirth and humor that I've been observing the whole laptop market has exploded into dire consumerism..

So this article really resonates, anyway.

I love all those phone numbers.

They're the 1980's equivalent to hyperlinking to corporate webpages or Twitter feeds (or, often, some stock market information) in present-day news articles. It's amazing how things change so much yet so little all at the same time.

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