Trying The First Portable Computer: The Osborne 1

The Osborne model 1 is described as the first commercially successful portable computer. Weighing in at nearly 25lbs and sporting a 5" screen, it wasn't really all that portable or convenient, but it did inspire many successive portables, luggables, and laptops.

I recently got ahold of one at an estate auction, and it's in great shape! I did have to replace the vintage power supply capacitors, since those almost always fail on these old computers. I also replaced a faulty floppy drive with a Gotek disk emulator, and made some other small adjustments.

And no, as far as I know, it can't play Doom :-( In fact it does almost nothing modern at all, and is kind of a giant pain to make compatible with anything modern! I did manage to get a few programs onto it, and we might re-visit this in the future. For now it's mostly a fun novelty and a neat way to look at vintage tech.

Some of the resources I used when working on this computer include:

GoTek Floppy Emulator: https://www.ebay.com/itm/234259341532...

3-D printed adapter for the GoTek: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:221...

Kermit disk image (bottom of the page): https://blog.nroach44.id.au/snippet-o...

Richard Loxley's blog about Osborne file transfers: https://www.richardloxley.com/2018/04...

I'd also like to thank Iso-Tip for sending me their cordless soldering iron. It made the capacitor replacement super easy! You can find them at https://iso-tip.com/ (Use code SMART24 for 15% off!)

You can also see my retro-inspired luggable cyberdeck build here:    • Satellite Hacking Cyberdeck v2.0  

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