Automated Test Equipment
The popular Macbook is a good example of a laptop. Strictly speaking, a laptop computer or simply a laptop is a small mobile or portable computer. The laptop weight varies from one to 6 kilograms (2.2 to 12 pounds) depending on size and materials used besides other factors. A laptop is also called as a notebook computer or even as notebook.
The laptop term usage was first coined in the year 1983. Notebook computer term was used later to differentiate between smaller computers like NEC Ultralite and Compaq LTE series introduced in the year 1989. These notebook computers approximated the size of an A4 sheet. Laptop term can be confusing since a laptop cannot be exactly used on laps because of heat and many notebooks are not built to the size of a typical A4 size. Some earlier portable computers like Macintosh and Zenith Turbosport were addressed as laptops but their sheer size and weight were too much to be thus categorized.
Laptops run on a single battery pack or from an external source of an AC/DC adapter that charges the battery while giving power to the laptops. A laptop is as good as a Personal Computer but it still is less powerful on many counts. The component packs used in laptops and PC s are exactly similar but in a laptop, the components are miniaturized and configured to operate in the best way for a portable use with a minimum of power consumption. Laptops use LCD monitors and different memory modules like the SO-DIMM in place of the bigger DIMMS. The laptops have a built in keyboard and a built in touchpad. However, connecting sockets are provided for external keyboard connection and external mouse connection.
Categories of Laptops
In the market, several categories are available. The popular ones are given here
• Ultraportables In TV or in laptop monitors the diagonal size of the screen is used for discrimination for model sizes. Ultraportables laptops monitor screens are sized less than 12 ?diagonal and weigh less than 1.7 Kg. The built in keyboards are not even full size to save on weight. They are rather high-priced. They work with extended battery life and use power saving central processors, and invariably use integrated graphics. Generally, Business people who prefer small and miniature laptops mainly use them.
• Thin and lights A Class of laptops that have a screen size varying from 12 to 14 diagonal and weighing from 1.8 kg to 2.8 Kg.
• Medium sized laptops Laptops with a screen monitor size varying from 15 to 15.4 inches diagonal and weighing between 3 to 3.5 Kg. They forgo some computing potential to compromise for compactness and longer battery life. However, the dimensions of the screen monitor determine the dimensions of the laptop.
• Desktop Replacement Laptop Computers These laptops are powerful built to be used in permanent locations and cannot be carried now and then to other locations primarily due to their weight and size. They offer ample space for powerful components and a big screen like 15• or more but they have restricted battery lifetime giving a battery life of 3 hours at most.
• School Program Based Laptops Schools are adopting laptop-based programs that invite students to work on running programs on laptops loaned to each student. The operating system is installed to modify the student access to write papers, take notes and perform other school permitted tasks. Good examples are the ultra portable IBM X31 with 12 screen monitor and the IBM T43 Thin and Light Laptop with a 14 monitor screen.
History of Laptop
Before the advent of laptops attempts were made in come with such ideas that earlier led to a novel model called ?Dyna book• . The first portable computer called Osborne I was made in 1981. Osborne used the operating system CP/M. The model was large in comparison to modern laptops and it carried a small CRT. However, its impact in the business circles was world shattering as a pioneer effort. Business people could carry, for the first time their office computer and data as well. This was followed by ?luggables• though only ten were made at that time. Osborne I was the size of a sowing machine and could be ferried in a small aircraft but to make it work it had to be plugged to a convenient outlet. The Compaq portable was more successful until IBM portable personal computer became the standard portable computer. The IBM portable was less mobile than Osborne and the Compaq ones it still required AC power to operate.
Another important machine Epson HX-20 made its mark in 1981 to become a big seller in 1984. Epson HX-20 was a simple computer that could be carried in a hand that used a full 68 keyboard with rechargeable batteries of Nickel Cadmium material. It had a small LCD display with other allied products like dot-matrix printer, Basic interpreter and a bank of 16KB Ram (expandable to 32 KB).
The first laptop called GRiD Compass 1101 appeared in 1979/1980 and was marketed in 1982. The computer was kept in a magnesium case with a clam shut design that allowed the flat monitor to be folded against the keyboard. The computer ran on batteries, used a plasma display, and was equipped with 384 KB bubble memory. The new computer was not compatible with IBM computer but was priced very high ranging from US$8,000 to US$ 10,000. During the eighties the Military, NASA and Space Shuttle used this Lap top computer exceedingly.
Two other competitive early laptops namely Sharp PC5000 and the Gavilan SC that were sold in 1984. Gavilan SC was the first computer product to be sold as a ?Laptop• . It used the pioneering touch pad and pointing device installed just above the keyboard. Both the Sharp and Gavilan models used the clam-shut case, connection to external printers, used LCD displays and were IBM compatible but had the option of using their own system software.
The largest marketable early laptop was the Japanese model Kyocera Kyotroinc 85 that found its mark in 1983. The model did not pick up many sales in Japan. However Tandy Corporation Olivetti and NEC adopted the model for they foresaw its robust market potential. They quickly renamed the model as TRS80 Model, Olivetti M10 and NEC PC-820 and marketed them under their own brands. All the three brands ran on AA Batteries.
The TRS-80 model ran its own programs that included a Basic Language interpreter, text editor and a terminal program supplied by the Microsoft. Funnily, the computer did not use clamshell case but used a pivotal LCD screen above a full keyboard. The model had its own internal modem with a very mobile communications terminal. The models had several advantages, good battery life, and ease of battery replacement, dependability and high mobility. The models were priced as low as US$300. Consequently, it became a rage with journalists. The model weighed less than 2 kg and was small sized. The model came with 8 KB RAM (expendable to 32 KB RAM) and a MHZ processor.
The first crop of Laptops came into play following a massive order requirement of 200,000 laptops by US Air force in 1987. The competition was intense amongst the computer giants like Toshiba, IBM, Compaq, NEC and Zenith Data Systems. Finally, after fierce competition ZDS was given the final order for its SupersPort series. Initially the series used Intel 8086 CPU and 20 MB hard disk drive with dual floppy drives, which was later modified to include Intel 80286 processor and a 20 MB hard disk drive backlit LCD screen and a NiCD battery pack. Thus, ZDS became the biggest lap top supplier in the world.
ZDS collaborated with the Japanese firm Tottori Sanyo in making these laptops marking it as the first partnership by a leading company with an Asian OEM. Other big companies like Compaq and Citizen naturally followed suit.
However, with the weakening of dollar and the tremendous growth of Taiwanese OEMs like Chicony, Twinhead, Compal, Quanta and Acer shifted the supply base from Japan to Taiwan. The other minor brands like Dell, Gateway and Micron quickly became market leaders that led to powerful combinations like Gateway/Quanta and Dell/Compal. These power group combinations literally thrust Taiwan OEMs as the epicenter of PC manufacturing platforms since 1995.
Cambridge 88 a new computer of about the size of an A4 sheet gripped the market sales in the year 1988. The new computer offered basic spreadsheet, word-processing and communication applications and operated on batteries. It was a ROM based computing machine with a small display monitor like the TRS-80 and could be termed as a prototype of ?personal-digital assistant • .
The close of eighties saw a tremendous growth of laptop computers and they were much sought after by the business crowd. NEC Ultralite was the first notebook computer launched in 1989. The model weighed just short of 2 kg and used a 2 MB RAM drive in place of a floppy o r a hard drive. Compaq LTE series note book computers pioneered the use of hard drives and used grayscale backlit displays.
The 1989 Macintosh Portable was the first battery-powered computer. The notebook was noted for its lucid active matrix display and long life of the battery. However, the notebook sale was not much since it was very unwieldy.
In the year 1991 the Apple computer firm launched the Power Book series pioneering changes that have become the virtual standards ever since. The changes were palm rest place, keyboard placement and finally the use of a tack ball. IBM released ThinkPad incorporating these changes. In the following years, more versatile and improved models were launched.
The year 95 was truly a milestone in the history of notebook computers. Microsoft launched its revolutionary Windows 95- a pioneering effort in providing bulk management control in operating systems. Earlier each brand used its own BIOS, drivers and ASICs. This clever move by Microsoft robbed the notebook makers of any innovation but it definitely helped in simplifying and stabilizing the notebook design methodology. The adoption of Windows 95 in notebook computing design increased the significance of CDROM and finally pushed the notebook designing to the Intel Pentium processor as the base platform. Gateway Solo was the first notebook based on this new concept. The model was based on Pentium processor, a CDROM pack with a three-spindle drive namely (optical, floppy and hard disk drive). Gateway Solo saw significant sales in the coming years. However, other company models of Dell Latitude, Satellite, IBM ThinkPad and Toshiba saw great success with two systems drive systems (hard disk and floppy) based on Pentium processor.
• Technology Improvements With technology improvements in the nineties, laptops climbed up in popularity and the prices came down rapidly and laptops have currently became commonplace. The technology improvements of notebooks down from the nineties could be put down briefly under different heads.
• Battery technology improvement The heavy lead acid batteries were finally changed with lighter and cost-effective NiCD cells, later with NiMH and the latest Lithium ion and Lithium polymer batteries.
• Power saving central processors. Initially laptops were built with 80286 processors and later were built with more powerful 80386 needing more energy. The Intel 386Sl processor chip was used for the low power consumption needs of the laptops. 386 SL was combined with a 386SX memory controller chip along with an I/O chip to make up the final SL set. The integration was good but proved to be more costly. This arrangement was copied by the major brands at that time. This was further improved with 486Sl chip. However, Intel had to forego this approach one it making the new Pentium processor chips. The early laptops required using Pentium had to use TAB mountings. The notebook production was rather limited with this limitation. Soon Intel started using standard chip packaging. Notebooks cannot be upgraded easily. Intel solved this problem by using MMC for mobile computing. With this, the customer could upgrade the notebooks and simplified the manufacturing process.
• Superior liquid crystal display. The earlier laptop screens were black and white, blue, white, and other varieties. Some even used plasma screens but they drew too much current from the batteries. Color STN screens were used for sometime but their viewing quality was very poor. In the year 1991 two new LCD technologies were in the offing namely TFT and Dual STN. The TFT screen provided very good viewing quality at a high price. The Dual STN resolved all the problems associated with STN screens at a low price. STN stands for Super Twist Nematic. Initially DSTN proved to be cheaper in comparison to TFT. However, the TFT screen prices dropped to a new low in the mid nineties as to discard altogether the use of DSTN screens in the market. The technology improved lately to become a possible competitor to the conventional bulky CRT screen.
• Superior hard disk technology. The old laptops and portables used only floppy disk drives. In the market, the hard disk drive developed to such an extent that high capacity, thin, reliable and shockproof hard disks were soon available. This allowed customers to store their work data on laptop computers and carry the data to distant places. The initial size of HDD was 3.5 inches and the HDD size shrank further to 2.5 inches size following customer pressure to reduce the notebook size.
• Enhanced network connectivity. Standard serial, standard parallel, PS/2 ports on IBM PC and internal modems made things easy for customers to work away from home. The other outstanding improvements were the introduction of network adapters and USB ports in 1997 and WiFi in 1999. These improvements made things easy for users to operate the peripherals from laptops as effectively as from desktop PCs.
Typical laptop parts not common to PC
• Batteries Lithium ion and Lithium polymer batteries are used in all laptops. The battery life extends from one hour to five hours depending on use. For light duty, the life is one five hours and for heavy duty the life is just one hour. The batteries give excellent performance for one to five years but they need to be replaced following the recharging pattern.
• Docking Stations Docking stations were common bays made up of 3.5 inches and 5.25 inches storage bays with attached connectors. The laptops were connected to the storage bays through a high-speed connector cable. The storage bay was used for company?s computing work regularized on a common network card and the card was placed in the docking station. The docking stations were expensive to maintain. The laptop technology progressed to high integration within itself hence; the docking stations became less critical. The advent of Port Replicator helped the laptop users to swiftly connect their laptop to RS-232, VGA and PS/2 devices. With increasingly higher speeds and connectors like Firewire and USB, the job of the Port Replicator was completed by a small wire connection to USB or Firewire port. Now wireless Port Replicator is being progressed.
• Laptop powering from AC converters Currently all types of notebooks or laptops can be powered through the AC converter s weighing half a kilo that adds on to the total weight of the equipment.
• Touchpads. Touch pads are added to control the cursor positioning. The pointing stock is a rubber dot located in between the G, H and B keys. To move the cursor pressure on the rubber pad dictates the movement. The touchpad is touching sensitive and the cursor is moved following finger touch on the touch pad.
• Upgradeability Upgradeability of laptops is currently ruled out as on now for technical and economic grounds. There is no industry wide standard form factor. Every leading laptop vendor pursues their own designs and construction schemes making it even more difficult for upgradeability and mounting repair costs. The standard feature peripherals are integrated on the motherboard itself. The other devices like RAM modules, hard drives and batteries are user upgradeable. The CPU upgradeability is next to impossible since CPUs are mounted on the motherboard itself. In some laptops, the CPUs are soldered and non-replaceable.
• Performance At best, a laptop is a desk PC replacement. Given the price range, a laptop performance lags behind the desk PC. This is primarily because in the laptop design the RAM is shared between graphics adapter and program memory. Laptops look for optimization and give more goal importance to energy effectiveness and compactness. In desktops, energy effectiveness and mobility are of secondary importance. However with the advent of dual-core processors and perpendicular recording the gap is likely to be closed soon. Many laptop companies have started building Core based laptops.
• Health points Reports say that the temperature of the scrotum or the pouch would be raised following the laptop heat release risking the sperm count. Study shows body positioning of the laptop would increase the temperature by 2.1 degree Celsius and the laptop heat would raise the temperature by 0.7 Degree Celsius thus increasing the temperature by 2.8 degree Celsius. Thus, sperm count would decrease.
• Security Laptops are prized for thefts. Laptops thefts could lead to identity theft and stolen credit card numbers.
Other Articles
