Wow! Is that a laptop version of a . . . was it the 1040ST or something like that?
My first laptop:
(the mac pictured is missing it’s battery, that’s why one edge seems ragged.)
Aside from the passive matrix screen that was ill suited for playing games (being both 1 bit and 640x400; a non standard resolution), I don’t think it had any of the quirks of first adopter syndrome.
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I have done this when I have work to finish up, and it’s nice out. Put some bait out, and just wait.
/me checks the weather
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In '85 I’m sure he was spot on. “Everyone” didn’t have a laptop until the 2000s and even then it was relatively pointless for a home computer before everyone had wifi.
I think I had that model. The first decent laptop, and the only Mac I, owned. Gave it to a collector when I moved up north.
Is that what you meant?
I had one of those when I worked in Korea and Hong Kong (in manufacturing QA) in the late 80’s. Worked perfectly for days on four little AA batteries, and I could get replacements anywhere.
I could send emails and create business letters and reports from just about anywhere and the keyboard was a full travel, really typable keyboard.
I expect that reporters kept using them because they fit a particular need - and they did it very well.
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I’ve got an OG Macbook I’d like to fix, as it was given to my daughter years ago to play with, and she tried to dismantle it (because she is my child).
edit: @jerwin - yes, one of those
My first portable was a Tandy M102, purchased just before Tandy discontinuted them. It was a delightful little machine, and I souped it up with more memory and enhanced software ROMs. Despite my Surface Pro 3, I still miss that Model T; it had one of the best keyboards ever.
Reporters loved them because of the modem; with a handset adapter it let them connect to their typesetting servers and file stories on location, far quicker and more efficiently that dictating a story.
I miss my old Osborne 1. It had it all – CP/M, Wordstar, Forth, two 5.25" floppy drives, a 300 baud modem with a real telephone jack, and a bitching design ethic. Only weighed 30 pounds.
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That is the shizzit right there. Zork anytime you want! 
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This blew my mind when a friend brought it over to my house.
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Imagine an A4000 in one of those though…
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One of my college friends has / had one of those.
I remember watching him playing Seven Cities of Gold on it down in the campus SF library.
Also: It was festooned with an astonishing number of stickers. A real work of art.
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The campus SF club had an Osborne built from leftover stock after the company went bust. It worked OK but was prone to lockups / reboot due to static.
I did a fair amount of writing on it, enough that I got a program that allowed my then-new IBM PC to read and write Osborne format discs. (WordStar files, for the most part.)
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Sounds like a simple-ish casemod, if the boards fit.
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Oooooooo!!! Cool!!! And like Art Deco, it still looks futuristic 
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“Tandy, which started it all” in the article got me nostalgic and misty eyed.
I had one of the GRiD machines through surplus in the 90s. Unusable old (as an actual computer) by then but still super cool. I sold it for too little I’m sure.
Oh, those things.
I agree that most touchpads are horrid experiences overall and absolutely unusable for gaming (you try aiming that bow while holding the right button and shooting with the left), but I’ve found recent-vintage Macbook ones to be in a class above the usual: surprisingly decent overall and actually better than a mouse for some horizontal-scrolling-heavy tasks like video editing. If they get the haptic feedback thing absolutely right in the new models (a big if) there’s a lot of potential for more intuitive feedback as well.
Maybe the trackpoints are better for mostly-typing applications where having your hands on the keyboard at all times is preferred, but I’ve always found using them for any sort of precise mousenanigans to feel exactly as frustrating as my childhood attempts at drawing with the Mega Drive directional pad.
Now the question is if it will be available as a spare part, and what protocol it uses. And if windows and xwindows can be coaxed into using the data.
They can be fairly precise. But not fast and it requires quite some practice.
We need some other kind of pointing devices than all the stuff we got now. And we need less reliance on GUIs and more keyboard macros. Why there are so few keys like CapsLock that could be remapped to serve as combo keys for various added functionalities?
