49 years ago, the first laptop ever was born: the 9 kg MCM/70.

Any young person believes that the laptop (portable personal computer) has been with us from the very beginning. This, as you might have guessed, was not the case at first. Create a computer with screen D keyboard not weighing much and being able to move was not easy. This is his story.

September 25, 1973 Microcomputer Computer Machines, Inc. (MCM) introduced external reference MCM/70 (MCM 70). MCM was founded in 1972 with the goal of designing, building and marketing a modern portable microcomputer.

In this way, The MCM/70 was the first truly portable computer. and possibly the first truly usable microcomputer system on the market. Today he turns 49 years old.

The MCM/70 included one or two digital tape drives in one physical unit, which included an integrated keyboard and display, with a total weight of about 9 kg. To emphasize the portability of the MCM/70, MCM has provided an optional carrying case so that the entire computer can fit under an aircraft seat.

MCM/70 and MCM/800, more powerful model introduced in 1976can be connected to any printer, which was something completely new at the time.

The laptop used IBM’s APLOffsite Link as its user language. and it was the first commercially available computer to have APL as its main or only user language. MCM continued to use APL as its user language in the MCM/700 and later 800s.

The MCM/70 offered the user virtual storage as an automatic standard feature, provided the computer was equipped with at least one tape drive or one disk drive. And it was the first commercially available computer to do that.

This allowed the user to perform large data manipulation tasks.one that would normally require a mainframe, but is of course slower on a very small and relatively expensive computer.

The laptop that paved the way for Apple

The MCM/70 was the first microcomputer with an operating system: AVS.. This managed the virtual storage transparently to the user and provided an interface between the APL and the hardware.

The MCM 70 provides a new level of hardware and software integration. This was the first apparent case of what is called “co-engineering”, where computer software and hardware are developed simultaneously by people working together, consciously aiming for a common set of goals for hardware performance when software controls it.

As advanced and sophisticated as all of ACM’s hardware and software innovations are, and as useful as business customer machines were before the PC revolution, MCM machines never reached enough volume to provide a lower unit cost.

When he presented Mansana II in April 1977, at a much lower price and without the same restrictions, became an immediate success, taking sales away from MCM. Also, the Apple II’s ability to run VisiCalc was so compelling that many people bought it just for that.

It and the open-architecture IBM PC, introduced in 1981, and its clones flooded the market that MCM was targeting. In 1981, when the PC revolution began, the company was in trouble, and in 1985 MCM pulled out of the portable computer market.