Message 42: Date: 1.12.96 From: nicholas@media.mit.edu To: oem@wired.co.ukHenry Ford would be amazed by today's automobile ads. He would find no mention of horsepower or acceleration. Instead, he'd find references to seemingly trivial accessories: automatic door locks, dimming mirrors, built-in cup holders and the like. But he would have little cause for alarm. Form over function is often the path of mature products. It isn't necessary to mention basic features like the engine. Instead, lesser details creep to the foreground and provide character and uniqueness.
Shortly, that shift will transform portable computing. My guess is that our children will never see a laptop characterised by the speed of its processor. Already we see that the form factor - the machine's physical shape - is more important than the speed of its microprocessor.
My first laptop was a Sony Typecorder, released in early 1980. This svelte machine weighed 3 pounds 4 ounces, ran endlessly on four AA batteries, and offered a full-sized keyboard and built-in tape drive. Its most noticeable drawback was the one-line LCD, but I quickly got used to it. The Typecorder expected a market with journalists. And for this reason, the modem only uploaded - it literally had just one suction cup for attach-ing to a telephone mouthpiece. Pretty primitive but, boy, did I get a lot of work done with it. I suddenly found uses for the interstices of life where I might otherwise nod off, doodle, or daydream. In fact, I used my Typecorder to write almost every proposal to fund the Media Lab's construction.
In those days though, a laptop often became an attractive nuisance. Working on an aeroplane was difficult, as people interrupted me to ask what the device was. It became easier to use pencil and paper during short flights until I perfected my body language to provide an easily readable "Do Not Disturb" sign.
In 1983, the young Japanese genius Kay Nishi designed the next-generation laptop, marketed simultaneously by Olivetti, Tandy and NEC, and first built by third-party Kyocera. These too were lightweight machines with full keyboards, powered by four AA batteries, but with an eight-line display. Though none had the Typecorder's brushed aluminium elegance, they were several steps ahead of it and supported a full duplex modem. I used mine for almost ten years before switching to my PowerBook 180.
And here is the paradox. The history of laptops has gone somewhat downhill.
Common PINs
Now when I travel, almost everyone is pecking away at keyboards. The one-line monochrome message has evolved into a full-colour, twelve-inch display. That is enormous progress but at a powerful price. I now carry eight to ten battery packs during long trips. I will not even consider a laptop design that includes unstackable batteries. The fact that most batteries do not indicate their charge state is pathetic. It is as if the designer assumed the laptop would always be used plugged in, and that people would travel with one spare battery at most.While advising a large Japanese firm on its future laptops during the late 1980s, I discovered that Japanese designers viewed them as moveable desktops. Small homes and offices made it necessary to put a machine away and take it out again. They were designing machines that would never see a lap and would fit perfectly into a culture that drew hard lines between home and office, work and play. (You almost never see Japanese working on planes.)
But portable computers are also for peripatetic, digital people, who need more than a high-octane computer - they need a constant digital presence. Under these conditions, the value of some features suddenly changes. For example, lightness counts, but rugged-ness counts more. I have abandoned PC card modems because their connector is too delicate; I prefer shoving the RJ-11 into the back.
Today, flight attendants don't ask me what's on my lap; they ask me if it has a CD-ROM - in which case I can't use it inflight. I doubt laptops radiate enough to be hazardous, but I am not going to argue, even if this errs on the ridiculous side of safety. If airlines prohibit laptops, as Korean Air did for a while, there will be something new to envy and market: tempested lap-tops, the machines the intelligence community uses to achieve no radiation (so spooks and counterspooks cannot snoop from a distance).
Real envy
Laptop form factors have approached their limits. Face it - keyboard size has to be driven by the size of your hands. The screen probably ought to be about eight inches tall, hence the machine needs to be eight inches deep. And, if the machine gets too thin, it will become structurally awkward, if not uncomfortable. In fact, you want a certain amount of weight so it won't slide around. Even the display has limits. You really don't need more than 100 pixels per inch. Today, display brightness and contrast are more important than resolution - so there goes power again (until somebody invents a good reflective display).But I do have one new requirement - something that planes and boats have and cars soon will. I want my laptop to know where it is. This means knowing about time and time zones. It also means the ability to correlate longitude and latitude with cities, so that my laptop will know what city it is in, what language to use, what local telephone numbers to dial and what protocols to use for Net access; let it worry.
Computer vendors have the form factor about right and should be producing simple-to-use, smart-acting machines, not smart-looking, power-hungry machines. A start is letting my laptop know where it is situated.