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Xerox NoteTaker

Portable computer by Xerox

Field	Value
name	Xerox NoteTaker
developer	Xerox PARC
type	Portable computer
releasedate
price	US$ 50,000
unitsshipped	10 prototypes only
os	Smalltalk
power	Rechargeable battery
cpu	Intel 8086 @ 5 MHz
memory	256 KB RAM
storage	Floppy disk drive
display	7 inch (18 cm) built-in touch-sensitive monochrome display monitor
sound	Stereo speakers
input	Folded out keyboard, Microphone
controllers	Mouse
connectivity	Ethernet board
dimensions	2 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 7 1/2 in
weight	22 kg
predecessor	Dynabook
website

The Xerox NoteTaker is a portable computer developed at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California, in 1978. Although it did not enter production, and only around ten prototypes were built, it strongly influenced the design of the later Osborne 1 and Compaq Portable computers.

Development

The NoteTaker was developed by a team that included Adele Goldberg, Douglas Fairbairn, and Larry Tesler. It drew heavily on earlier research by Alan Kay, who had previously developed the Dynabook project. While the Dynabook was a concept for a transportable computer that was impossible to implement with available technology, the NoteTaker was intended to show what could be done.

Description

The computer employed what was then highly advanced technology, including a built-in monochrome display monitor, a floppy disk drive and a mouse. It had 256 KB of RAM, then a very large amount, and used a 5 MHz Intel 8086 CPU. It used a version of the Smalltalk operating system that was originally written for the Xerox Alto computer, which pioneered the graphical user interface.

The NoteTaker fitted into a case similar in form to that of a portable sewing machine; the keyboard folded out from the bottom to reveal the monitor and floppy drive. The form factor was later used on the highly successful "luggable" computers, including the Osborne 1 and Compaq Portable. However, these later models were about half as heavy as the NoteTaker, which weighed 22 kg.

References

"Personal Computers".
Alan C. Kay: ''[http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/ The Early History of Smalltalk]''. In: Proceedings of [[History of Programming Languages. HOPL II]]. "ACM SIGPLAN notices", Vol. 28, No. 3, March 1993, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, pp. 69
Atkinson, Paul. (2010). "Computer". Reaktion Books.
[http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mobile-computing/18/316/1689 Xerox Notetaker] - CHM Revolution
Dormehl, Luke. (2012). "The Apple Revolution: Steve Jobs, the counterculture and how the crazy ones ...". Random House.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

portable-computers xerox-computers prototype-computers computer-related-introductions-in-1978

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