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10/09/2012
British Designer Of First Laptop, Bill Moggridge, Dies Aged 69
British industrial designer Bill Moggridge, credited with designing an early portable computer with the now common flip-open design, has died aged 69.
The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum said Moggridge, its director since 2010, died on Saturday from cancer.
Moggridge is credited with the design of the Grid Compass, a computer with a keyboard and a yellow-on-black display, which sold for $8,150 (£5,091) when it was released in 1982. Encased in magnesium, it was used by the US military and made its way into outer space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1985.
Although there were many portable computers being developed at the time, Grid Systems Corp won the patent for the clamshell design with a foldable screen hinged toward the back of the machine, said Alex Bochannek, a curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
Moggridge pushed for this foldable design when he realised the flat-panel screen, keyboard and circuitry could fit snugly together.
"In terms of the industrial design of the enclosure, Moggridge was instrumental in proposing that," Bochannek said. "He came up with that particular form factor."
(H)
The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum said Moggridge, its director since 2010, died on Saturday from cancer.
Moggridge is credited with the design of the Grid Compass, a computer with a keyboard and a yellow-on-black display, which sold for $8,150 (£5,091) when it was released in 1982. Encased in magnesium, it was used by the US military and made its way into outer space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1985.
Although there were many portable computers being developed at the time, Grid Systems Corp won the patent for the clamshell design with a foldable screen hinged toward the back of the machine, said Alex Bochannek, a curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
Moggridge pushed for this foldable design when he realised the flat-panel screen, keyboard and circuitry could fit snugly together.
"In terms of the industrial design of the enclosure, Moggridge was instrumental in proposing that," Bochannek said. "He came up with that particular form factor."
(H)
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