dscy@eng.cam.ac.uk (D.S.C. Yap) (05/05/91)
The following are the specifications for a notebook computer that will
appeal immeasurably to the tens of thousands of technical
professionals out there who use computers as an integral part of their
work. It likely isn't what you'd expect we'd want, and, in fact, many
of the people to whom it would be irresistable, probably don't know it
yet; they've given up on notebook/laptop computers for the time being
- "cute, but you can't do any real work on them." This is precisely
the point, don't try! Instead, give us a true notebook, in the most
banal use of the word. Most laptop/notebooks are targeted at people
who have limited access to computers (in one way or another) and they
try to cram as many 'big' computer features into the little boxes as
possible, "thereby, appealing to the largest market, while wowing the
masses with the amount of power they've stuffed into it." Stop it.
Sure we're impressed, but we can't afford to buy your boxes for the
amount of _utility_ that we'd get out of it. Something with a ten
inch diagonal screen is NEVER going to be my primary computer even if
it runs unix. All I want is a notebook, but current machines that
might fulfil that role don't quite cut-it.
If you build something with the following specifications and price it
as I suggest, you will sell millions of these boxes, not just to
technical professionals but to many others, especially students, who
could fully _utilize_ a _true_ notebook.
____Specifications_for_a_True_Notebook_Computer:
o dimensions, 8.5" x 11" x 1"
o 8 or 10 MHz 80C88, 80C86 or V20
o MS-DOS compatible
o 1.44 MB disk drive, try to make this as fast as possible, the floppy
drives I've used in laptops have been notoriously slow.
o 1 MB ram expandable to 2MB, must be LIM/EMS 4.0 compatible
o 4+ hr battery life, _must_have_sleep/resume_key
o 1 serial port
o The display requires a bit of discussion. 640 x 400 resolution is
more than adequate but make sure that the aspect ratio isn't
ridiculous and that there is adequate spacing between the lines of
text. Backlighting is not necessary, but a good reflective back is
(if it's too dark to see the screen, you shouldn't be working by that
light anyway). Legibility is very important, may I suggest a sans
serif font. Also big is better, lot's better.
o Total weight: 3 to 3.5 lbs, I'm adamant on this, it will be the thing
that'll make the whole thing work; people will buy it based on this
alone. Trust me on this, I'm very smart. ;-)
Now for the things that it will NOT have, mostly to save money:
o There is no reason to have a parallel port, all the printers that
I have access to are already connected to computers! When I had my
NEC 286 Prospeed, I never once used the parallel port. It was much
easier to print something to disk then take the disk a put it in an
IBM or a Mac (with superdrive) or a SUN (with mtools) or a NEXT etc.
and print out the file from these machines - they invariably have
nicer printers attached to them than I could ever afford, and this
is generally true of all students. If I'm not going to use something
I don't want to carry it around or pay for it.
o Even EGA graphics capability is not important though CGA might be nice
(to preview graphs). Let's face it, the screen will be unimpressive
and too slow to run drawing programs on - let's not try.
o Don't bother putting MS-DOS or DR-DOS in ROM, it may save memory but
is an unnecessary expense, people who buy this computer shouldn't be
planning on running large applications on it, making this a non-issue.
1 or 2 meg of ram is nice because you can use it as a ram disk or as a
disk cache not because this enables you to run windows 3.
For this machine you are allowed to charge a retail price of not more
(preferably less) than $500 US. Considering the level of technology
that will go into it and the cost of the components this will still
leave you with a considerable margin. Any more, and you'd be gouging.
At that price, I'd be upset if I sat on it, dropped it, lost it or had
it stolen but I wouldn't cry, I'd just go and buy another one. I
would feel very uneasy carrying around a $2000 notebook (at least with
the Prospeed, it was so heavy, I was sure no one wanted it - I didn't)
and would not utilize it as much as a $500 notebook. You have to
realize that with notebooks, people don't consider just how much money
they can afford, they have to think about how much they can afford to
lose/drop/have stolen; it is _not_ like buying a computer in a tower
case.
One last thing, I realize that with fluctuating currencies that you
have to protect your margin, but you are not allowed to charge more
than 350 pounds sterling (before VAT) for the machine in the UK. This
is a concession I insist that you make for my benefit, seeing as I've
just gone to all the trouble of spec'ing the beast for you. Thus,
showing you the road to fortune. :-) This stipulation is removed if
you choose to give me one of these machines gratis :-) :-).
Seriously, if there is a company out there making a machine to these
specs please tell me about it. Readers of this newsgroup, if you
support my argument and would like to see such a machine, post, post
en masse. People who work for companies that manufacture
laptops/notebooks do read this newsgroup, something might get done.
Before I get lot's of mail suggesting this computer or that computer
let me assure you that I've been looking for over a year and nothing
that I've seen has quite fit the bill.
"Why is it so hard to get something so simple?"
Cheers,
Davin
--
.oO tuohtiw esoht fo noitanigami eht ot gnihton evael Oo.
Davin Yap, University Engineering Department, Cambridge, England
--> dscy@eng.cam.ac.uk <--dan@rna.UUCP (Dan Ts'o) (05/06/91)
In article <1991May04.204037.21028@eng.cam.ac.uk> dscy@eng.cam.ac.uk (D.S.C. Yap) writes: >The following are the specifications for a notebook computer that will >appeal immeasurably to the tens of thousands of technical >professionals out there who use computers as an integral part of their >work. > >o dimensions, 8.5" x 11" x 1" > >o 8 or 10 MHz 80C88, 80C86 or V20 > >o MS-DOS compatible > >o 1.44 MB disk drive, try to make this as fast as possible, the floppy > drives I've used in laptops have been notoriously slow. > >o 1 MB ram expandable to 2MB, must be LIM/EMS 4.0 compatible > >o 4+ hr battery life, _must_have_sleep/resume_key > >o 1 serial port > >o Total weight: 3 to 3.5 lbs, I'm adamant on this, it will be the thing > that'll make the whole thing work; people will buy it based on this > alone. Trust me on this, I'm very smart. ;-) Agreed, almost totally. (Except the part about being smart :-)). My slight deviations are that - I would still like either a hard disk or enough RAM for a non-volatile RAM disk (a la T1000SE). The 3Mb on the T1000SE is pretty good. - I don't want to have to boot DOS from floppy. So either the hard disk or MSDOS in ROM. - Toshiba-like auto-resume is a must. - Of course, a decent keyboard. Again T1000SE is good enough. - Even lighter than 3.5 lbs wins BIG points. How about < 2 lbs ? - Slightly thinner would be better, too. - Although $500 would be nice, I'm willing to spend $800. The T1000SE comes close. However, it is too heavy (6-7lbs) and has too poor battery life (2 hours). If Toshiba could do slight modifications to reduce the weight of the T1000SE and allow double nickel hydride batteries (in lieu of modem, a la T1000LE), we could have it. Why is it that the Compac can get 5 hours of life from its battery while Toshiba can only get 2 hours ? Cheers, Dan Ts'o 212-570-7671 Dept. Neurobiology dan@rna.rockefeller.edu Rockefeller Univ. ...phri!rna!dan 1230 York Ave. tso@rockvax.bitnet NY, NY 10021
khester@cs.utexas.edu (Stewart Kevin Hester) (05/06/91)
First: I WANT IT! You have hit the nail on the head, all I want is a machine that I can download files to and edit 'on the trail'. Second: Not to add features (and $$$) but I would like to elaborate on the ideas presented. 1) If you are going to have 640x480, then let people use a 50 line text mode. It may not be pretty, but it would be useful. 2) If you are going to put stuff in rom, put in MS-DOS and some sort of file transfer program. 3) Make the batteries last a long time :-). 4) If you want to have a big screen, put the screen in one half of the shell and the keyboard in the other half - a la Zeos notebook. 5) Re: $500. I have been considering buying a 286/386 notebook but I have not done it because all I want is a 640x480 screen to edit text with! (I would also be uncomfortable carring a $2000 computer in my backpack.) khester@cs.utexas.edu S. Kevin Hester
gooley@sunc1.cs.uiuc.edu (Markian "Party Mineral" Gooley) (05/06/91)
Yes, indeed. My personal wants are a little bit different, but this is the right idea. Here's my (incomplete) list of features: 1) A Real Keyboard. The new HP machine and the Poquet are heading towards what I want, but they have these stupid little keyboards that can't be used for touch-typing. WHY? I don't mind an 8.5" by 11" (folded up) machine if I get a Real Keyboard. Certainly I don't need something that must fit in a large coat-pocket. Am I going to wear a coat everywhere as a sort of carrying case? 2) Long battery life. I would gladly lug an extra pound or two in batteries in order to get a good 10 hours or better. The Airis machine uses 11 NiCad C-cells, I understand, and even with a hard disk is rated at over 10 hours. The Psion and HP and Poquet machines have very long battery life -- how? I'd be willing to sacrifice clock speed (a bit), backlighting (or have an on-off switch for it), and maybe even floppy drives for it. (Why the heck is "solid state disk" so expensive, by the way? Some sort of expensive low-powered static RAMs?) 3) No hard disk. Please. All the machines with nice screens have a #%@$ing hard disk built in. I don't want one. It's a NOTEBOOK. If you want to provide useful storage, provide two 1.44 M drives, or (if they get cheap) 2.88s, if you must, designed to use no power when idle. A single 1.44 would do if that would keep the machine cheap. 4) Low price. As the earlier posters wrote, who wants to carry around a $2000 machine? $500 or so should be about the limit. 5) Low weight. The Sharp MZ-100 and MZ-200, at current prices, would seem to be the best existing approximations of what I want (confession: I've never seen one close up), but they are large and weigh over 8 lbs. Much too heavy. 4 or 5 lbs. would be okay. Back to work -- I don't really have time to be writing this... Mark. gooley@cs.uiuc.edu
steven@prl.philips.nl (Steven Van Lerberghe 42468) (05/07/91)
Re: `ultimate' notebook (was: `Notebook manufacturers, ...') ... hmm, well, I've been looking at portables/laptops/note- books/notepads too, (for about a year now) I agree with several points. Here is my own opinion (I seem to always compromise on my `ideal' specs and a new entry on the market realizes one of my requirement (seems there is a new notebook at least once a week!). Example: pen-based notebook (notepad?) isn't a _real_ notebook something you _write_ on? Looks like GO's PenPoint OS makes this a possibility, at last. The minimal size of a keyboard, even a standard one, is not necessarily _the_ determining size factor: I'm sure a `foldable' or `raisable' one is possible (IBM's sloping keyboard could be physically realized by having the back of a flat keyboard lift a few mm when opened up). Concerning the display: _contrast_ is paramount. The Macintosh `luggable' came pretty close, but suffered from parallax (only the part of the sreen exactly in front of you wasn't `double'). I _do_ want graphics demand: the only thing I really want to run on `my' notepad is PostScript (the sole reason I did not by a Psion MC400: they are terribly late in releasing software, even the developer's kit, so I couldn't even try). So, though I'm an `MS DOS: just say no.' guy, I would almost accept one because there are interpreters avaliable for PCs. A parallel port is not necessary for PostScript printing (on e.g. a Canon Bubblejet 10e :-) so... Another _must_ is full auto-resume (again: like Psion...). And I want looong battery life (same thing: MC400 = 60 hrs!), preferably on standard _and_ rechargeable cells (idem). I agree that the present magic two inches are too bulky: two _centimeters_ would be more like it, to me! Further, I would like to have some expandability, espacially a co-processor (preferably special-purpuse for PostScript: Philips make such a beast!), possibly a built-in modem... What _I_ DON'T want are power-hungry and _noisy_ drives, so, please only memory cards. In fact I advocate expasion modules as cards too: Toshiba advertises its new 2000 with an 8 meg `credit-card' expansion module too, I believe. Why not have a modem and a coprocessor module in this size (again, I think Psion's expansion slot comes reasonably close to this...). Finally, I would appreciate the thing to be robust enough to withstand some `rough' treatment (Hewlett-Packard salesmen used to chuck their calculators in a corner, retrieve them and show the customer it still worked...). Having no moving parts (drives!) would help... Maybe I would spend a little more on such a machine than you advocate, let's say 500 UK-pounds or 1000 US-dollars? Steven Van Lerberghe, still looking, ...
bruceb@locus.com (Bruce M. Binder) (05/09/91)
->The following are the specifications for a notebook computer that will ->appeal immeasurably to the tens of thousands of technical ->professionals out there who use computers as an integral part of their ->work. -> ->o dimensions, 8.5" x 11" x 1" ->o 8 or 10 MHz 80C88, 80C86 or V20 ->o MS-DOS compatible ->o 1.44 MB disk drive, try to make this as fast as possible, the floppy ->o 1 MB ram expandable to 2MB, must be LIM/EMS 4.0 compatible ->o 4+ hr battery life, _must_have_sleep/resume_key ->o 1 serial port ->o The display requires a bit of discussion. 640 x 400 resolution is ->o Total weight: 3 to 3.5 lbs, I'm adamant on this, it will be the thing -> ->Now for the things that it will NOT have, mostly to save money: ->o There is no reason to have a parallel port, all the printers that ->o Even EGA graphics capability is not important though CGA might be nice ->o Don't bother putting MS-DOS or DR-DOS in ROM, it may save memory but -> ->For this machine you are allowed to charge a retail price of not more ->(preferably less) than $500 US. Considering the level of technology Rather than point out little things that I wish this machine had or didn't have, let me just emphatically point out that I would buy this machine in a minute. I would probably buy two! I would like to know if everyone who posted a "yes, but I wish..." would really not buy the machine described here. Sure, no machine is perfect for everyone but I agree with Davin: at this price, if you build it, they will come. <bruceb> ___ __ __ ___ ( ,)( \/ )( ,) Bruce M. Binder (619) 587-0511 ) ,\ ) ( ) ,\ Locus Computing Corporation bruceb@locus.com (___/(_/\/\_)(___/ San Diego, California ...!ucsd!lccsd!bruceb
bruceb@locus.com (Bruce M. Binder) (05/09/91)
>The following are the specifications for a notebook computer that will >appeal immeasurably to the tens of thousands of technical >professionals out there who use computers as an integral part of their >work. > >o dimensions, 8.5" x 11" x 1" >o 8 or 10 MHz 80C88, 80C86 or V20 >o MS-DOS compatible >o 1.44 MB disk drive, try to make this as fast as possible, the floppy >o 1 MB ram expandable to 2MB, must be LIM/EMS 4.0 compatible >o 4+ hr battery life, _must_have_sleep/resume_key >o 1 serial port >o The display requires a bit of discussion. 640 x 400 resolution is >o Total weight: 3 to 3.5 lbs, I'm adamant on this, it will be the thing > >Now for the things that it will NOT have, mostly to save money: >o There is no reason to have a parallel port, all the printers that >o Even EGA graphics capability is not important though CGA might be nice >o Don't bother putting MS-DOS or DR-DOS in ROM, it may save memory but > >For this machine you are allowed to charge a retail price of not more >(preferably less) than $500 US. Considering the level of technology > >"Why is it so hard to get something so simple?" > >Cheers, > >Davin >-- Rather than point out little things that I wish this machine had or didn't have, let me just emphatically point out that I would buy this machine in a minute. I would probably buy two! I would like to know if everyone who posted a "yes, but I wish..." would really not buy the machine described here. Sure, no machine is perfect for everyone but I agree with Davin: at this price, if you build it, they will come. <bruceb> ___ __ __ ___ ( ,)( \/ )( ,) Bruce M. Binder (619) 587-0511 ) ,\ ) ( ) ,\ Locus Computing Corporation bruceb@locus.com (___/(_/\/\_)(___/ San Diego, California ...!ucsd!lccsd!bruceb
pastor@PRC.Unisys.COM (Jon Pastor) (05/09/91)
I must have missed the original posting, but here are my thoughts: - with a modem (built-in, power-consuming only when in use...), a serial port, and Laplink in ROM -- as well as an optional disk to plug into at home -- is a floppy necessary? Who wouldn't rather have, say, a couple of MB of hardRAM? More, maybe; if the street price of RAM is $80/MB, a manufacturer could afford to load you up. - memory expandability using non-proprietary memory; Toshiba expandibility is fine if you don't mind getting ripped off even for third-party memory. check out the cost of taking a T2000 to 9 MB -- you could buy a second laptop! How about using SIMMs?... - DOS (*FULL* DOS, Toshiba! not half of it.) in ROM - 9x12x1.5 is fine -- AND, it lets you have a full keyboard (with cursor keys *and* page up/down, end, and home, rather than emulating the latter) - 4-5 pounds is fine - VGA, with 50-line mode; grey-scales not necessary, if that increases cost - a REASONABLY-PRICED external hard-drive - multiple battery options -- custom rechargeable, off-the-shelf rechargeable, disposable -- along with the ability to change batteries without shutting machine off (shouldn't be hard to do with a small backup battery, or two banks of batteries that are alternated). - I'd pay up to $1000 for this machine, if it existed -- and for that, they should be able to put in a 286 (or maybe even a 386SX, if they don't have spring for hard drive, floppy drive, disk controller, etc.)