Osborne Computer Corporation

Adam Osborne founded the Osborne Computer Corporation and produced the first commercially available portable computer in 1981. The concept (based on the Xerox Notetaker developed at Xerox PARC but never offered for sale) set the design standards for the first generation of “luggables.”

The Osborne I weighed 24 pounds and cost $1,795. The price made the machine especially attractive, as it included software worth about $1,500. The machine featured a 5-inch display, 64 kilobytes of memory, a modem, and two 5 1/4-inch floppy disk drives.

Despite its success, Osborne made a number of unfortunate business decisions and had to declare bankruptcy in 1983.