7 ms·

Mod. 5140 - IBM's First Laptop Computer

80 points by jumpocelot 1y ago

michaelsmanley 1y ago
When I was a co-op student employee at IBM in the late 80s, I was given a desk in what was otherwise a storage room piled with stuff that had been used and then set aside. One box contained a 5140 convertible laptop with one of each peripheral "slice" -- printer, modem, expansion ports -- and the full set of technical manuals. I was allowed to take that beast home with me. I learned so much tinkering with that machine. Eventually, I sold the whole set at a ham fest and I have regretted it often. Nice to see an appreciation of it, though I would never have looked at it as alligator-like.
- lemonlearnings 1y ago
  Any details to share re. specs, operating system?
  - michaelsmanley 1y ago
    That was almost 40 years ago, so little I recall other than it was an 8088 variant in there, the peripheral bus was unique to that machine and the only documentation was in the tech manuals (as opposed to the hardware reference book I had for everything else), and I got lucky and the lab had requisitioned a Model 2, so the screen was nice and they'd gotten the full 640Kb RAM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Convertible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Convertible has all the details on that machine you could want.
  - reaperducer 1y ago
    I had one. Great little system. Built like a tank, and just as heavy. Incredibly forward-thinking modular architecture. Keyboard, memory, drives, serial port, parallel port, even the screen could be replaced just by the turn of a lever or a push of a button. Fantastic keyboard, even by today's laptops standards. Ate batteries like M&Ms. I almost always kept it plugged in. At the time, running it off the pair of 720k floppies was fine. I believe there was a hard drive option, but I never saw it. Its biggest weakness was the screen. There were backlit and CRT options, which were better and you could just pop off and in. The screen was grayscale CGA, but there was a TSR called SimCGA which would translate, so you could run EGA programs.
    - michaelsmanley 1y ago
      Yeah, when I say "nice" about the screen, it is all relative. Mine was nice compared to the original screen on the Model 1. There are very few pieces of laptop/notebook hardware that I really enjoyed. The 5140 was one of them. I doubt I'd enjoy it now, but 40 years ago I found it just lovely.
- uk001 1y ago
  [flagged]
johnDD 1y ago
I wonder if John Titor could have used this?
- mananaysiempre 1y ago
  Nah, that would have been made by IBN, a completely different company.
- dirkt 1y ago
  Unlike the IBN 5100 [1] (which I guess actually was IBM's First Laptop Computer), the 5140 ran MS-DOS, and couldn't emulate the IBM/360 ISA like the IBN 5100 could, so it would be useless for John Titor because you couldn't hack SERN with it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100
Waterluvian 1y ago
Were these truly meant to be “laptops” or just portable computers? I guess if they have a battery is a fairly clear discriminator.
- munchlax 1y ago
  Sorry to wit but if it has a battery, it's called a notebook. Nowadays laptops can be notebooks but not vice-versa.
  - roryirvine 1y ago
    Not really. Originally, there were portables (sometimes referred to as "luggable"), like the Osborne or Compaq Portable series. The early models were the size of a small suitcase or large briefcase and contained a CRT screen, usually with a detachable full-size keyboard. Later, portables ditched the CRT in favour of (very readable) gas plasma displays, allowing for greatly reduced depth. The final models were roughly the size of two shoeboxes stacked on top of each other, and were sometimes referred to as a "lunchbox". Laptops took the opposite approach, reducing height rather than depth. This IBM 5140 was a good early example, but I think the first might actually have been the Data General DG-1 in 1984. They had a flat screen (usually passive matrix) with a hinge directly behind the keyboard. About a third of the case stuck out behind the hinge, and typically housed the battery (usually lead acid), floppy disk, and HDD. Unlike the previous luggables, they could just about be used on a lap for short periods. They often weighed around 5-6kg, though, so most of them will have been used on a desk or table almost all of the time. Notebooks came a few years later (1989-ish), with the NEC Ultralite, Toshiba Dynabook, and Compaq LTE leading the way, and were distinguished by being smaller still - the size of a ream of A4 paper - and having the hinge right at the back of the machine. They tended to be lower-powered (8086 CPUs rather than 286 or 386), and initially only had a FDD as they were too small to fit a full-height 3.5" hard drive. They weighed around 2-3kg, so actually could be used on a lap. The limitations of the smaller models evaporated quickly, and notebooks had almost completely taken over by the mid 90s. The last lunchbox portable was probably the Compaq 486 in 1992. There were still a few rugged or workstation laptops being produced right up to the end of the decade, but they were pretty rare by that point.
sroerick 1y ago
Aesthetically this beats about 75% of the current laptop market. Would love to see some genuine creativity / cyberdeck type builds from laptop makers
- iancmceachern 1y ago
  I'm down. I can design and build it, if there are folks out there who are keen to do the other aspects of a business please feel free to reach out.
  - criddell 1y ago
    Maybe you can answer this then. Back in the early 80’s, Radio Shack made the TRS-80 Model 100 laptop. It ran for 20+ hours on 4 AA batteries. A few years later, Psion came out with a series of small devices that ran on 2 AA batteries and got 30+ hours of runtime. With modern electronics and displays, could something like a model 100 be made that could run for hundreds or even thousands of hours on 4 AA batteries?
    - mananaysiempre 1y ago
      > With modern electronics and displays Wouldn’t the second part work against the first? There’s a lot of pixels you need to push to refresh a good modern display. I guess you could use a bad (as in low-res) modern display, but I wouldn’t expect those to be particularly concerned with energy efficiency either, just cheap.
      - raddan 1y ago
        I would kill for an e-ink version. For a palmtop I don’t think a high-res color display is necessary.
      - ac29 1y ago
        Yeah, the above referenced TRS-80 Model 100 had a 240x64 monochrome display with no backlight. No surprise it didnt use much power.
c-smile 1y ago
I used to have NEC MobilePro 900 like here: https://live.staticflickr.com/213/481422006_92cdaeb6ee_b.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/213/481422006_92cdaeb6ee_b.jpg I miss that form factor really. And BTW, I regret that WindowsCE is not the thing anymore. IMO it has the best development infrastructure out there backed with MSVC IDE. I classify OSes into two major groups: "writer OS" (all desktop OSes primarily) and "reader OS" (all mobiles). But there is a void in between for palmtop form factor devices. Sigh, probably its only me who needs this ...
- mananaysiempre 1y ago
  Judging by eBay prices for Psions, you’re not the only one who misses that form factor.
- davidgaleano 1y ago
  You may like this: https://kingjim.us/products/pomera-full-suite-typewriter-for-focused-writing https://kingjim.us/products/pomera-full-suite-typewriter-for...
  - rsolva 1y ago
    Or a reMarkable with the addon keyboard!
mananaysiempre 1y ago
See also: “IBM Made the Longest Laptop Ever” by Cathode Ray Dude, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htl_JbZIcUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htl_JbZIcUU. There is, per the title, some discussion of its (somehow simultaneously inspired and silly) expansion system, but also of its other features as well, such as (spoiler alert) the fact that it may be the first personal computer to have suspend to RAM. (So I guess—expanding on a sibling comment[1]—aesthetics is not the only axis on which “this beats about 75% of the current laptop market.”) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45478692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45478692
dariosalvi78 1y ago
I still have it at home, it was my first PC, my father bought it and never used. I learned using DOS on it
prmoustache 1y ago
I'd argue that given the max angle of the screen it cannot be used on your lap comfortably unless your eyes are on your navel. Hence it would be a battery powered portable pc and not a laptop.
- shakna 1y ago
  The TRS 80 Model 100 is regularly called "the first laptop". You'd disagree with that. Where's the line? Is a CHIP or M5 Cardputer portable or laptop? Is it the hinge needed? In which case is a folding phone, a phone, laptop, or tablet? (Not meaning to be aggressive. Curious about the fuzzy definition. Wanting to be convinced.)
- reaperducer 1y ago
  I'd argue that given the max angle of the screen it cannot be used on your lap I'd argue that the two years I spent using it as a laptop, largely on my lap, says it works fine. I also used it balanced on my knees, curled up in a window nook.
queenss90 1y ago
[flagged]
WillAdams 1y ago
For the rest of the story, see: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/483933.ThinkPad https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/483933.ThinkPad
atombender 1y ago
I taught myself Turbo Pascal on a friend's IBM PS/2 P75 [1] around 1990, also a briefcase-style luggable that came out a couple of years after this one. The P75 had a delightful orange plasma screen, and the keyboard was wired and could be unhooked from the case, and since it was a 486 chip, it could all of DOS, OS/2, and Windows (and apparently it was able to run Windows 95 when that came out). My main machine at the time was the Amiga 500, and the PS/2 felt like a step down in terms of graphics and so on, but Turbo Pascal was just too magical for me to care. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_portable_computers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_portable_computers
theodric 1y ago
Hey, I just brought mine home! Got funny looks at TSA and on the plane, but nobody stopped me :) Piccy: https://cdn.social.linux.pizza/system/media_attachments/files/115/256/646/635/360/903/original/e8035f8f65c6f0be.jpg https://cdn.social.linux.pizza/system/media_attachments/file... (Link to post in case that doesn't work: https://social.linux.pizza/@theodric/115256647992228538 https://social.linux.pizza/@theodric/115256647992228538 )
SilentM68 1y ago
It's interesting but I remember seeing Radio Shack TRS80 Model 100 Laptop at the RadioShack store and wanting it, but mom said no. I had to settle for the Color Computer, since it was somewhat cheaper. People usually remember IBM PC but don't realize that there were many other brands out there. In my high school days, we had access to Apple I & IIs as well as TRS80 Model III machines. TRS80 machines came with DOS, BASIC & Editor Assembler, which were taught at our high school digital class. TRS80 100 https://www.oldcomputers.net/trs100.html https://www.oldcomputers.net/trs100.html TRS80 Model III https://www.oldcomputers.net/trs80iii.html https://www.oldcomputers.net/trs80iii.html COCO https://www.oldcomputers.net/coco.html https://www.oldcomputers.net/coco.html

80 points by jumpocelot 1y ago

When I was a co-op student employee at IBM in the late 80s, I was given a desk in what was otherwise a storage room piled with stuff that had been used and then set aside. One box contained a 5140 convertible laptop with one of each peripheral "slice" -- printer, modem, expansion ports -- and the full set of technical manuals. I was allowed to take that beast home with me. I learned so much tinkering with that machine. Eventually, I sold the whole set at a ham fest and I have regretted it often. Nice to see an appreciation of it, though I would never have looked at it as alligator-like.

lemonlearnings 1y ago
Any details to share re. specs, operating system?
- michaelsmanley 1y ago
  That was almost 40 years ago, so little I recall other than it was an 8088 variant in there, the peripheral bus was unique to that machine and the only documentation was in the tech manuals (as opposed to the hardware reference book I had for everything else), and I got lucky and the lab had requisitioned a Model 2, so the screen was nice and they'd gotten the full 640Kb RAM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Convertible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Convertible has all the details on that machine you could want.
- reaperducer 1y ago
  I had one. Great little system. Built like a tank, and just as heavy. Incredibly forward-thinking modular architecture. Keyboard, memory, drives, serial port, parallel port, even the screen could be replaced just by the turn of a lever or a push of a button. Fantastic keyboard, even by today's laptops standards. Ate batteries like M&Ms. I almost always kept it plugged in. At the time, running it off the pair of 720k floppies was fine. I believe there was a hard drive option, but I never saw it. Its biggest weakness was the screen. There were backlit and CRT options, which were better and you could just pop off and in. The screen was grayscale CGA, but there was a TSR called SimCGA which would translate, so you could run EGA programs.
  - michaelsmanley 1y ago
    Yeah, when I say "nice" about the screen, it is all relative. Mine was nice compared to the original screen on the Model 1. There are very few pieces of laptop/notebook hardware that I really enjoyed. The 5140 was one of them. I doubt I'd enjoy it now, but 40 years ago I found it just lovely.
uk001 1y ago
[flagged]

johnDD 1y ago

I wonder if John Titor could have used this?

mananaysiempre 1y ago
Nah, that would have been made by IBN, a completely different company.
dirkt 1y ago
Unlike the IBN 5100 [1] (which I guess actually was IBM's First Laptop Computer), the 5140 ran MS-DOS, and couldn't emulate the IBM/360 ISA like the IBN 5100 could, so it would be useless for John Titor because you couldn't hack SERN with it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100

Waterluvian 1y ago

Were these truly meant to be “laptops” or just portable computers? I guess if they have a battery is a fairly clear discriminator.

munchlax 1y ago
Sorry to wit but if it has a battery, it's called a notebook. Nowadays laptops can be notebooks but not vice-versa.
- roryirvine 1y ago
  Not really. Originally, there were portables (sometimes referred to as "luggable"), like the Osborne or Compaq Portable series. The early models were the size of a small suitcase or large briefcase and contained a CRT screen, usually with a detachable full-size keyboard. Later, portables ditched the CRT in favour of (very readable) gas plasma displays, allowing for greatly reduced depth. The final models were roughly the size of two shoeboxes stacked on top of each other, and were sometimes referred to as a "lunchbox". Laptops took the opposite approach, reducing height rather than depth. This IBM 5140 was a good early example, but I think the first might actually have been the Data General DG-1 in 1984. They had a flat screen (usually passive matrix) with a hinge directly behind the keyboard. About a third of the case stuck out behind the hinge, and typically housed the battery (usually lead acid), floppy disk, and HDD. Unlike the previous luggables, they could just about be used on a lap for short periods. They often weighed around 5-6kg, though, so most of them will have been used on a desk or table almost all of the time. Notebooks came a few years later (1989-ish), with the NEC Ultralite, Toshiba Dynabook, and Compaq LTE leading the way, and were distinguished by being smaller still - the size of a ream of A4 paper - and having the hinge right at the back of the machine. They tended to be lower-powered (8086 CPUs rather than 286 or 386), and initially only had a FDD as they were too small to fit a full-height 3.5" hard drive. They weighed around 2-3kg, so actually could be used on a lap. The limitations of the smaller models evaporated quickly, and notebooks had almost completely taken over by the mid 90s. The last lunchbox portable was probably the Compaq 486 in 1992. There were still a few rugged or workstation laptops being produced right up to the end of the decade, but they were pretty rare by that point.

sroerick 1y ago

Aesthetically this beats about 75% of the current laptop market. Would love to see some genuine creativity / cyberdeck type builds from laptop makers

iancmceachern 1y ago
I'm down. I can design and build it, if there are folks out there who are keen to do the other aspects of a business please feel free to reach out.
- criddell 1y ago
  Maybe you can answer this then. Back in the early 80’s, Radio Shack made the TRS-80 Model 100 laptop. It ran for 20+ hours on 4 AA batteries. A few years later, Psion came out with a series of small devices that ran on 2 AA batteries and got 30+ hours of runtime. With modern electronics and displays, could something like a model 100 be made that could run for hundreds or even thousands of hours on 4 AA batteries?
  - mananaysiempre 1y ago
    > With modern electronics and displays Wouldn’t the second part work against the first? There’s a lot of pixels you need to push to refresh a good modern display. I guess you could use a bad (as in low-res) modern display, but I wouldn’t expect those to be particularly concerned with energy efficiency either, just cheap.
    - raddan 1y ago
      I would kill for an e-ink version. For a palmtop I don’t think a high-res color display is necessary.
    - ac29 1y ago
      Yeah, the above referenced TRS-80 Model 100 had a 240x64 monochrome display with no backlight. No surprise it didnt use much power.

c-smile 1y ago

I used to have NEC MobilePro 900 like here: https://live.staticflickr.com/213/481422006_92cdaeb6ee_b.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/213/481422006_92cdaeb6ee_b.jpg I miss that form factor really. And BTW, I regret that WindowsCE is not the thing anymore. IMO it has the best development infrastructure out there backed with MSVC IDE. I classify OSes into two major groups: "writer OS" (all desktop OSes primarily) and "reader OS" (all mobiles). But there is a void in between for palmtop form factor devices. Sigh, probably its only me who needs this ...

mananaysiempre 1y ago
Judging by eBay prices for Psions, you’re not the only one who misses that form factor.
davidgaleano 1y ago
You may like this: https://kingjim.us/products/pomera-full-suite-typewriter-for-focused-writing https://kingjim.us/products/pomera-full-suite-typewriter-for...
- rsolva 1y ago
  Or a reMarkable with the addon keyboard!

mananaysiempre 1y ago

See also: “IBM Made the Longest Laptop Ever” by Cathode Ray Dude, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htl_JbZIcUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htl_JbZIcUU. There is, per the title, some discussion of its (somehow simultaneously inspired and silly) expansion system, but also of its other features as well, such as (spoiler alert) the fact that it may be the first personal computer to have suspend to RAM. (So I guess—expanding on a sibling comment[1]—aesthetics is not the only axis on which “this beats about 75% of the current laptop market.”) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45478692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45478692

dariosalvi78 1y ago

I still have it at home, it was my first PC, my father bought it and never used. I learned using DOS on it

prmoustache 1y ago

I'd argue that given the max angle of the screen it cannot be used on your lap comfortably unless your eyes are on your navel. Hence it would be a battery powered portable pc and not a laptop.

shakna 1y ago
The TRS 80 Model 100 is regularly called "the first laptop". You'd disagree with that. Where's the line? Is a CHIP or M5 Cardputer portable or laptop? Is it the hinge needed? In which case is a folding phone, a phone, laptop, or tablet? (Not meaning to be aggressive. Curious about the fuzzy definition. Wanting to be convinced.)
reaperducer 1y ago
I'd argue that given the max angle of the screen it cannot be used on your lap I'd argue that the two years I spent using it as a laptop, largely on my lap, says it works fine. I also used it balanced on my knees, curled up in a window nook.

queenss90 1y ago

[flagged]

WillAdams 1y ago

For the rest of the story, see: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/483933.ThinkPad https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/483933.ThinkPad

atombender 1y ago

I taught myself Turbo Pascal on a friend's IBM PS/2 P75 [1] around 1990, also a briefcase-style luggable that came out a couple of years after this one. The P75 had a delightful orange plasma screen, and the keyboard was wired and could be unhooked from the case, and since it was a 486 chip, it could all of DOS, OS/2, and Windows (and apparently it was able to run Windows 95 when that came out). My main machine at the time was the Amiga 500, and the PS/2 felt like a step down in terms of graphics and so on, but Turbo Pascal was just too magical for me to care. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_portable_computers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_portable_computers

theodric 1y ago

Hey, I just brought mine home! Got funny looks at TSA and on the plane, but nobody stopped me :) Piccy: https://cdn.social.linux.pizza/system/media_attachments/files/115/256/646/635/360/903/original/e8035f8f65c6f0be.jpg https://cdn.social.linux.pizza/system/media_attachments/file... (Link to post in case that doesn't work: https://social.linux.pizza/@theodric/115256647992228538 https://social.linux.pizza/@theodric/115256647992228538 )

SilentM68 1y ago

It's interesting but I remember seeing Radio Shack TRS80 Model 100 Laptop at the RadioShack store and wanting it, but mom said no. I had to settle for the Color Computer, since it was somewhat cheaper. People usually remember IBM PC but don't realize that there were many other brands out there. In my high school days, we had access to Apple I & IIs as well as TRS80 Model III machines. TRS80 machines came with DOS, BASIC & Editor Assembler, which were taught at our high school digital class. TRS80 100 https://www.oldcomputers.net/trs100.html https://www.oldcomputers.net/trs100.html TRS80 Model III https://www.oldcomputers.net/trs80iii.html https://www.oldcomputers.net/trs80iii.html COCO https://www.oldcomputers.net/coco.html https://www.oldcomputers.net/coco.html