HOMO DIGITALIS

GENEALOGY OF THE PORTABLE PCs

In the beginning was the “portable computer”, nothing more nothing less than a transportable computer, thank to its small size.

With the addition of the rechargeable battery (early models had not it) born “laptop”, which adopt the camshell design.

The laptops evolved in two directions. The first one brought to the “notebook” (products that tend to all-in-one), which moved to: 1) reduction in the width and length of the products, generating “handheld PCs”, and 2) the reduction in thickness and weight of the products, leading to the “ultrabook PCs”.

The other main evolution direction of “full size laptop” brought to "tablet PCs", products designed as an effort to innovate  the interface. Existing “tablets” descend directly from them, as well as the PDA (also in credit with the “handheld PCs” family).

From “handhed PCs” focused on the Internet, “netbooks” were born, from those focused on mobile phones came  “pocket PCs”.

THE ORIGINS OF "MOBILE"

At the origin of “mobile” idea that we are interested in, referred to widespread consumer electronic devices, there are the transistor and the battery. Between 1954 and '55, in the United States, already conquered by consumer electronics, appeared the first “transistor radio”, a small radio easily portable. It was not a marketing intuition, instead a bet of the two companies that had developed the transistor technology.

Contrary to what is happening in the current mobile diffusion, the transistor radio did not create a parallel environment, different than traditional radio environment.

But affirmed the concept of the domestic technologies use (as well as other products) in mobility, a concept that marketing would have adopted and that would have increasingly led the R & D for decades to come.