Musings on personal and enterprise technology (of potential interest to professional technoids and others)

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Is There a Sub-Subnotebook in Your Future?, NYTimes, 12/1992 :)

Dell's tiny-footprint Netbooks seem to be selling nicely... This, despite concerns as to whether a full set of traditional corporate standard software (including anti-virus, anti-malware etc.) can run and be managed efficiently on a relatively modestly powered machine. Some say the Netbook's success to date, is partially due to the current economic situation ( see for example, CNet's "Faltering economy boosting Netbooks" ). Hopefully for Dell, the success of the Netbook will continue regardless of the economy.

In case there was any doubt however, this is definitely not the first attempt at making a popular "Sub-Subnotebook"... One example was written up nicely by Peter H. Lewis of the New York Times in December of 1992:

Is There a Sub-Subnotebook in Your Future?:

"... Taking advantage of recent advances in miniaturization, computer makers are creating portable computation and communications devices that can easily be carried in one hand or tucked into a coat pocket. But at some point the usefulness of small systems comes into question: Most information is still entered by typing, and no one has yet managed to miniaturize executive fingers.

That hasn't stopped some companies... from creating personal computers that are about the size of a calculator..."