Long live the laptop computer

© Mark Ollig

In May 1983, Gavilan, a lightweight portable computer, was demonstrated during the Anaheim National Computer Conference.

Many computer enthusiasts consider the Gavilan Mobile Computer to be the first portable, battery-powered laptop computer.

Manuel Fernandez, an engineer, created the Gavilan.

The sleek-looking computer came equipped with a 320K 3.5-inch floppy disk drive.

The 3.5-inch floppy disks were better known as diskettes since the data storage film media was inside a rigid plastic case that was not flexible or “floppy” like the older, more accurately named 5.25-inch floppy disk.

The IBM computer I owned during the early 1980s used dual 5.25-inch floppy disk drives.

The Gavilan was, in fact, a very laptop-notebook style of computer. It measured 11.4 inches by 2.7 inches and weighed in at a carriable nine pounds.

Some of you may recall the Osborne computer from 1981 advertised as “portable,” but weighed nearly 25 pounds.

The top model Gavilan computer used a Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD) monitor screen protected inside a durable black plastic case. It displayed 16 lines by 80 characters.

While transporting the Gavilan computer, its screen closed downward, thus protecting the full-size standard keyboard.

Gavilan’s central processing unit was a 16-bit Intel 8088 chip operating at 5 MHz.

Folks mostly used the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS 2.11 version) on the Gavilan to control how they would interact with software applications and hardware.

Software programs running on this computer included a word processor called SuperWriter, and the business spreadsheet program SuperCalc.

SuperCalc was developed back in 1980 and is similar to VisiCalc used on the Apple II computer.

Data communication over dial-up telephone lines was possible using Gavilan’s communication software package and its built-in 300 baud modem.

This computer included 48K of Read-Only Memory (ROM).

Computer data stored in ROM is permanently written on computer chips and performs hardware\firmware\software instructions.

The Gavilan came equipped containing 96K of Random-Access Memory (RAM) for managing software programs.

RAM code can be read and re-written.

Additional Gavilan RAM uses a small, rectangular plug-in module containing 32K of memory costing $350 per module.

Four plug-in module slots are available on the Gavilan.

The IBM personal desktop computer I had back in 1983 came equipped with 256K of RAM. I soon needed to add another 256K as having 512K of RAM allowed various software programs to run more efficiently.

The Gavilan used 64K of Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) memory which held its non-volatile memory, such as its Basic Input Output System (BIOS) information.

A small, round lithium cell battery maintains the information stored on the CMOS.

Several files, menus, and interactive icons were available on Gavilan’s screen.

Just above the keyboard is an electronic solid-state touchpad user interface.

The computer user swiped and tapped their finger on the touchpad until the screen cursor reached the desired icon program application, document, utility software, or other files/folder icon needing to be accessed.

The finger swipe and tapping method are analogous to today’s touchscreen functionality, which wasn’t too bad for 1983 technology.

The Gavilan computer operated from eight to nine hours, using ten nickel-cadmium rechargeable D batteries.

The computer’s batteries would obtain 80 percent usage with a one-hour recharge.

The price for a Gavilan computer with 96K of RAM and a 16-line by 80-character monochrome display screen was $4,000, which, when adjusted for inflation, would today equal $10,500.

The lower-priced model Gavilan SC came equipped with 64K of RAM, an eight-line by 80-character display screen, and sold for one thousand dollars less.

An optional four-pound thermal printer could be attached to the computer, which cost $1,000 in 1983 or $2,670 in today’s dollars.

Cash-flow funding problems stressed Fernandez’s Gavilan Computer Corporation during their ongoing development.

Although Fernandez’s company began shipments of the Gavilan laptop computer in 1984, it still ended up going out of business in 1985.

By this time, companies such as Toshiba were manufacturing and mass-marketing less-expensive laptop computers to the public.

The Gavilan could have become one of the more popular laptop computers if it were not for its financial difficulties.

Of course, laptop computers remain a popular computing device and will be for many years.

Below are photos of the Gavilan portable laptop computer.

No end in sight for the internet’s growth

© Mark Ollig

In 1990, Berners-Lee wrote the software code for a hyper-linked website on a NeXT computer made by a California company founded by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs.

WorldWideWeb is the name of the web browser code application written by Berners-Lee.“In providing a system for manipulating this sort of information, the hope would be to allow a pool of information to develop which could grow and evolve. This is why a web of notes with links (like references) between them is far more useful than a fixed hierarchical system,” Berners-Lee wrote in March 1989.

Internet Live Stats is an analytics website that Berners-Lee has quoted.

The website claims its statistical information is gathered by “an international team of developers, researchers, and analysts with the goal of making statistics available in a dynamic and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world.”

Internet Live Stats statistics are referenced in more than 400 books, and cited in more than 150 professional journal articles, including this column.

Worldwide, there are more than 4.9 billion active internet users, and 4.2 billion people use mobile devices for accessing the internet.

Of the 2 billion websites on the planet, 191.5 million are currently active.

Every minute, people upload more than 500 hours of video to YouTube.

As of December 2019, studies by Statista report the age group with the highest number of internet users worldwide is 25 to 34 years old.

People 45 to 54 make up 14 percent, and those 55 to 64 represent 10 percent.

Folks 65 and better make up 7 percent of internet users worldwide.

Chrome is the most popular web browser, used by 65 percent of the population. Safari is second, at 16.8 percent, and Firefox comes in third, with 4.1 percent.

According to the StatCounter website, the most popular web search engines are Google, with a 92.7 percent market share; Bing, with 2.8 percent; and Yahoo, at 1.6 percent.

According to statistical data gathered by Alexa, the top 10 most popular websites on the internet are:

• Google.com.

• Youtube.com.

• Tmall.com.

• Baidu.com.

• Qq.com.

• Facebook.com.

• Sohu.com.

• Taobao.com.

• 360.cn.

• Yahoo.com.

Note: 360.cn is not missing an o for .com. The internet top-level domain abbreviation .cn is the country code abbreviation for China.

The top 10 countries with the highest number of internet users at the start of 2021:

• China, 854 million.

• India, 560 million.

• US, 313.3 million.

• Indonesia, 171.2 million.

• Brazil, 149 million.

• Nigeria, 126 million.

• Japan, 118.6 million.

• Russia, 116.3 million.

• Bangladesh, 92.2 million.

• Mexico, 88 million.

There are 35.5 million Canadian internet users as of Oct. 15, 2020, and Vatican City has 480 internet users as of Dec. 31, 2020.

I also found the top 10 most popular non-gaming apps installed on smartphones:

• Tiktok, 63.3 million.

• Zoom, 52.2 million.

• Snack Video, 43 million.

• Google Meet, 38 million.

• Instagram, 36 million.

• WhatsApp, 34 million.

• Snapchat, 24 million.

• Telegram, 22 million.

• Facebook, 20 million.

• Messenger, 17 million.

The total number of recorded internet users on the planet reached 1 billion in 2005, 2 billion in 2010, 3 billion in 2014, and 4.95 billion as of Dec. 31, 2020.

The 2020 population of the United States is estimated to be 331,002,651, with 94.65 percent having internet access.

Minnesota’s current population is a little over 5.6 million, with 85 percent having access to the internet from any location within the state.

It is predicted the world’s population to be 8.5 billion by 2030, with an estimated 7.65 billion having internet access.

By 2030, the population of the United States will have reached an estimated 360 million.

Currently, six people inhabit the International Space Station as it orbits 250 miles above the Earth. I imagine each of those folks has internet access.

By 2040, we will probably have internet users on the moon and Mars.

There appears to be no end in sight for the internet’s growth into the foreseeable future.

Stay safe out there.

Personal computing ‘got real’ during the 1970s

© Mark Ollig

A unique computer exhibition took place in California April 15-16, 1977. It was called The West Coast Computer Faire.

This two-day business and personal home computer event took place at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium and Brooks Hall. 

It showcased 180 exhibitors and attracted 12,657 curious attendees.

During the exhibition, conferences provided tutorials and information about computers, software, computing games, speech recognition systems, musical synthesizers, and more.

Other electronic devices, including projection TV, were displayed during the computing exposition. 

Roundtable discussions during The West Coast Faire answered questions about using computers and software for individual hobbyists, business owners, and operators.

Business software demonstrations included showing how a computer could easily track and keep a running inventory of a company’s merchandise.

The Homebrew Computer Club, a well-known California grassroots computing organization, participated during the event. 

Its representatives included Steve “Woz” Wozniak, 26, and Steve Jobs, 22, of Apple Computer.

They both introduced and demonstrated their new home personal computer, called the Apple II.

The Apple II was Apple Computer’s first attempt at selling a personal computer directed to everyday American households.

As many of you and I will recall, by the end of the 1970s, the Apple II became a predominant computer, and the rest, as they say, is history.

See a 1977 photo of the Apple II computer at https://bit.ly/3pamLB7.

The 1977 West Coast Computer Faire showcased introductions for the new Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Micro Computer System, and Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) computer.

Many computing devices were on display, including a time-sharing computing terminal from Teletype called the Dataspeed 40/2 business computing terminal.

The Dataspeed 40/2 sent and received data with a mainframe computer. It operated at 300 to 1,200 bps (bits per second) and featured a keyboard, CRT (cathode ray tube) display screen, and a small paper printer.

The Teletype Corporation, a subsidiary of Western Electric Company, which was the manufacturing branch of the Bell telephone system owned by AT&T, produced the Dataspeed 40/2.

See an August 1976 Bell System magazine advertisement and technical reference guide for the Dataspeed 40/2 computing terminal at https://bit.ly/3pZXrio.

The Cromemco Z-2 microcomputer used the Zilog Z80 8-bit microprocessor chip and a 4 MHZ 250-nanosecond cycle-time board clock. Its all-metal, square-boxed chassis held 21 printed wiring card slots.

Besides performing practical business and individual computing operations, the Cromemco Z-2 plays the Tank War, Space War, and the Chase computer game.

Tank War involves two military tanks maneuvered and controlled by individual players using two joysticks. 

The game includes sound effects and proved to be very popular, as many people enjoyed playing it during The West Coast Computer Faire.

The Cromemco Z-2 microcomputer was available as a put-together do-it-yourself kit, or could be ordered fully assembled from the factory. It retailed for $595 in 1977, which today is equivalent to $2,663.

A photograph of the Cromemco Z-2 computer and its 1977 magazine advertisement is at https://bit.ly/3cMQ3mG.

NorthStar Computers from Berkeley, CA displayed their North Star Micro Disk System computer during the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire.

The OS (operating system) used with its computer was North Star DOS (disk operating system). 

The North Star Micro Disk System computer’s high-level computer programming language was called North Star BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). 

Its disk system executed the software programs written on floppy-disks.

See an original 1977 copy of the 23-page “North Star BASIC Version 6” manual explaining BASIC machine line commands by going to https://bit.ly/3p0ib8j.

Heuristics Inc. demonstrated its new product, called SpeechLab, which uses peripheral hardware to allow a computer to recognize human speech. It cost $300, which amounts to $1,343 in today’s dollars.

A ComputerWorld newspaper article Aug. 15, 1977, explains how SpeechLab technology removed data from a person’s analog speech-wave, digitized it at 64 bytes per word, and then applied a pattern-matching technique to recognize the person’s voice. 

The First West Coast Computer Faire successfully demonstrated how a computer and software could benefit individuals’ daily lives and improve small businesses’ operations.

See a 1977 poster announcing the First West Coast Computer Faire at https://bit.ly/3pZVHWc.

I recall reading BYTE computing magazines during the late 1970s and 1980s, with its stories of electronic components, computer hardware, software, and peripherals used for building and operating hobbyist computers.

In the May 1977 BYTE, Wozniak explained the Apple II design, “To me, a personal computer should be small, reliable, convenient to use and inexpensive.”

BYTE magazines from 1975 to 1997 are available at The Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine.

And so, by the end of the 1970s, personal computing got real.

Stay safe out there.

A smarter shopping cart

© Mark Ollig

The Life magazine cover from Jan. 3, 1955, featured a painting by artist Norman Rockwell of a smiling toddler sitting in a grocery shopping cart.

In 1937, Sylvan “Syl” N. Goldman owned the Humpty Dumpty grocery store chain in Oklahoma City.

After observing customers having difficulty holding wire shopping baskets on their arms while attending to their energetic children, he decided there needed to be a less frustrating way to shop in his store.

Goldman got the idea for making a wheeled shopping cart from a wooden folding chair in his office to push down the grocery store aisles.

“Why not place a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs?” Goldman is said to have asked himself while staring at the chair.

After a few initial attempts, Goldman’s shopping cart was successfully manufactured and patented through his company, the Folding Basket Carrier Company.

Goldman filed for a patent on his shopping cart March 14, 1938, describing it as “a novel rollable market basket carriage of a lightweight portable type expressly but not necessarily, adapted for convenient usage by shopping customers in grocery stores and similar establishments.”

April 9, 1940, the US Patent Office granted him patent 2,196,914 for his shopping cart titled Folding Basket Carriage For Self-Service Stores.

Goldman’s cart resembles a metal folding chair (on wheels) with an upper and lower wire basket. A metal-framed rubber handgrip bar allows the shopping cart to be pushed and maneuvered.

The rest, as they say, is shopping cart history.

It’s 81 years later – be on the lookout for intelligent shopping carts rolling down a grocery store aisle near you.

I recently learned about a new shopping cart available from an AI (artificial intelligence) company called Caper, which might have amazed Goldman.

Called the Caper Smart Cart, it is an AI-powered shopping cart used inside a grocery store.

Caper has been working on the next generation of intelligent food store shopping carts.

Of course, brick-and-mortar stores have sought and employed various ways of reducing people’s face-to-face interactions amid the ongoing COVID-19 virus.

“In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for autonomous checkout technology is driving grocers and retailers to innovate and adopt new technologies that keep shoppers safe and streamline checkout,” said Lindon Gao, CEO and co-founder of Caper.

The next-generation Caper shopping cart can exchange information with a store’s inventory and database systems.

Caper’s sensor fusion and deep learning computer-aided automation activate whenever placing an item inside the cart’s shopping basket.

The intelligent shopping carts’ display screen shows each product and total quantities in your cart.

Contained within a white plastic-frame molding facing the customer is the Caper Smart Cart display monitor (similar in size to a laptop screen).

When shopping in the produce department, the smart cart display will inform the shopper of nearby produce items for sale and coupon specials.

The smart shopping cart includes an onboard scale for weighing bulk items to be purchased.

If a shopper selects spaghetti and meatballs, recipe recommendations will appear on the smart carts’ display screen.

The cart’s screen can show a store map of your location and the aisle and shelf for a specific product.

A running cost total of the items inside the smart shopping cart is also displayed.

If an item is removed from the smart cart and put back on the shelf, the checkout total automatically adjusts.

As we push the smart cart down the aisle, the display screen shows the grocery store’s specials, price discounts, recipes, and nutritional information for various food products we pass by.

The smart cart’s built-in pay-and-go automated program means not having to take items to a cashier checkout lane or sliding purchases through the self-checkout scanner.

You only need to remove your items from the shopping cart, bag them, and leave the store.

Your receipt is automatically sent from the Caper Smart Cart to the app on your smartphone.

And to think I was happy finding a shopping cart without its wheels going “squeak-squeak-squeak” throughout the store.

To see a short video presentation about the Caper smart shopping cart of the future, visit https://bit.ly/3jiB0m5.

Caper is in Anguilla, a British overseas territory located in the Eastern Caribbean. Its website is www.caper.ai.

You can see Sylvan N. Goldman’s US Patent for his shopping cart at https://bit.ly/3oNxIbC.

Someday, an autonomous robot may be pushing a smart shopping cart down food store aisles and delivering groceries to our home in a self-driving automobile.

Stay tuned.

Also, remember to stay safe out there.