Taking It on the Road

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Portables turn up on bikes, bleachers and battlefields

Rock-'n'-Roll Drummer Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead takes one along on road trips, tapping out messages between performances. Space Shuttle Trainee Loren Acton has his along when he leaves Sunnyvale, Calif, for the Kennedy Space Center, using it to draft memos and read mail. New York Photographer Rick Smolan carries one on photo assignments, putting him in contact with cameramen all around the world. Physician Andrew Bern relies on his to get patient information in medical emergencies. Says Bern: "I don't go anywhere without it. Some day it will save lives."

What do doctor, drummer, photographer and astronaut have in common? None of them would leave home without his portable computer. Propped on knees and laps and fold-down trays, these marvels of miniaturization are turning up in the most familiar places: planes, buses, restaurants, at the track and on the campaign trail. Portable computers have shrunk in three years from the size of sewing machines to no bigger than a TV dinner, and in some circles they have become as ubiquitous as wristwatch calculators, headphone stereos and beepers. According to Dataquest, a California research firm, Americans this year will pay $400 to $3,000 each for some 470,000 lap-size computers, up from 10,000 two years ago. Within four years, says Dataquest, sales of portables will be growing faster than those of their desktop big brothers.

Until now, truly portable computers have been too limited or too expensive to attract a mass market. Early hand-held machines were glorified calculators with one-line screens. The first full-screen model, Grid Systems' Compass computer, cost $8,150 when it was introduced in 1982. But falling prices for both flat-panel display screens and computer chips that require little energy have made lap-size computers affordable. Last year Seattle-based Microsoft and Japan's Kyocera came up with the first winner: an eight-line screen with a full-size keyboard that could be sold with built-in software for less than $800. Marketed in slightly different models by Radio Shack, NEC and Olivetti, the machine was an instant hit. Hewlett-Packard and Epson have already introduced "laptops" that boast even more advanced features, and Data General is set to launch a machine next week that shows 25 lines of text.

Selling take-me-along machines is not without its risks, however. The market is littered with portables that never quite took off. In July, Convergent Technologies halted production on its Workslate computer, a $1,000 laptop with built-in financial-planning software. Gavilan Computers, which has introduced two different models aimed at traveling executives, is now scrambling for survival. Complains Convergent President Allen Michels: "The market for portable business computers just isn't there, at any price."

Nonetheless, lightweight machines that can be used for writing and telephone communications have caught on with at least one group of influential users: the press. According to some estimates, as many as half of Radio Shack's bestselling TRS-80 Model 100 portables have been sold to journalists. This year, laptops are being issued to reporters at nearly every U.S. news organization, including United Press International, Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, TIME and Newsweek.

The popularity of portables among working reporters is easy to explain. Most models are sufficiently rugged to pack in briefcases and shoulder bags. Battery powered, they can be used anywhere, from bleachers to battlefields. And many come equipped with built-in phone jacks to send copy directly to newsroom computers. Says U.P.I. Reporter David Armon: "I used to have to write stories in longhand and dictate them over the phone. Now I just bang them out, press a button and off they go." Lynn Sherr, who covers Vice-Presidential Candidate Geraldine Ferraro for ABC News, uses her Model 100 to transmit scripts to producers in New York City before she reads them on the air.

Even reporters, though, complain that the machines have their drawbacks. Some models hold only ten pages of text at a time, and most lack printers and disc drives for storing longer stories. All have dim screens that require good lighting conditions, and their clicking keys are far more distracting than the scratching of pen on paper. Seattle Writer Hal Glatzer was nearly thrown out of a seminar on portable computers when he refused to muffle the noise of his note taking.

But most people show more interest than irritation, especially in their first encounters with microchip technology. "There is a lot of prestige attached to the machines," says Glatzer. "When you reach into your briefcase and pull out a little computer, people know you are really plugged into high technology."

When reporters covering Jesse Jackson's trip to Cuba last June brought their portables to Havana, Cubans clustered around the keyboards with undisguised fascination. Americans are no less intrigued, reports Travel Writer Steve Roberts. He has pedaled 6,800 smiles around the U.S. on a custom-built reclining bicycle that he calls his Winnebiko. Roberts first wrote his stories on a Radio Shack portable but recently switched to a Hewlett-Packard model. He also uses the machine to send his reports to magazines and newspapers. At every stop, the curious gather to gawk. Says he: "I have become an agent of future shock."

With reporting by Michael Moritz, John E. Yang