This is sort of a condensed version of my series on the Toshiba satellite over on my youtube channel.
In fact, I’m lazy, and I admit it, this is mostly just fancy copy and pasting. But dare I say, read on if the history of average laptops interests you a little bit!
The Satellite line of laptops under manufacturer Toshiba have a history of being a viable and often times more value oriented alternative to IBM’s mid to low range thinkpads. Just like the IBM’s large product stack, Toshiba’s laptop Models have always varied wildly, from the mid range AMD APU powered units, like the one we’re going to rebuild in this series, all the way up to full fledged pro level units marketed under the added label “Qosmio”. These larger units offered some staggering specs for their age and even implemented dual GPUs in at least one SKU.
Toshiba’s laptops have always been market leaders in one form or another, starting with the Worlds first mass market laptop in the T1100 which was released in 85, had network connectivity as an optional upgrade, and weighed in at 9 pounds, or 4Kg in non freedom units. God I hate that joke. But here it is, in the middle of this video. The T1100 cost you a princely 4 grand in 1985 and if we adjust for inflation it comes to just under 10 grand!
A few other notable achievements for Toshiba’s laptop division include :
First laptop with a TFT or thin film transistor display, which they managed to pull off in 1991, though the technology was invented in 86, it was prohibitively expensive for a long time, and the integration into laptop displays no doubt helped lower the price of these CRT alternatives.
They also claim to have the first laptop to come with a CD-ROM drive in 95, which is quite impressive. I had a 98 IBM thinkpad with a CD-ROM drive, and I thought I was on top of the world at the time. Little did I know toshiba had been flaunting one for a few years before I ever got to experience the glory of a laptop device.
Not only did they have the first laptop with a CD-Rom but they also managed to have the first laptop with a DVD drive in 1997 with their libretto 50 which weighed in at just 1.9 pounds, or just under 9/10ths of a kilo.
By 1998 they where they where boasting to have the World’s smallest, lightest, most portable computer designed to run windows 95 or NT in the libretto 50 refresh, the aptly named libretto100CT. Packing a 166MHz Pentium 2GB harddrive, options for modem or CD-Rom and coming in under 2500 1998 dollars, it was a huge success in the Asian markets where Toshiba’s name was synonymous with laptops.
By far the most notable event in the Toshiba Satellite laptop lineup happened in 1998 as well. The very first presidential email was sent with a Toshiba Satellite Pro. On November 7th 1998 Bill Clinton Emailed John Glenn as he was aboard the SpaceShip Discovery in response to en email John had sent to Bill earlier in the week which read:
Dear Mr. President,
This is certainly a first for me, writing to a President from space, and it may be a first for you in receiving an E mail direct from and [sic] orbiting spacecraft.
In any event, I want to personally thank you and Mrs. Clinton for coming to the Cape to d/see [sic] the launch. I hope you enjoyed it just half as much as we did on board. It is truly an awesome experience from a personal standpoint, and of even greater importance for all of the great research projects we have on Discovery. The whole crew was impressed that you would be the first President to personally see a shuttle launch and asked me to include their best regards to you Hillary. She has discussed her interest in the space program with Annie on several occasions, and I know she would like to be on a flight just like this one.
We have gone almost a third of the way around the world in the time it has taken me to write this letter, and the rest of the crew is waiting.
Sincerely,
John Glenn
To which bill clinton responded, and I quote
Dear John,
Thanks for your message. Hillary and I had a great time at the launch. We are very proud of you and the entire crew, and a little jealous. We can’t wait for you to get home so we can have a first hand report. Meanwhile back on earth, we’re having a lot of fun with your adventure. At a camp rally in Queens, I asked an 83 year old lady what she thought of your trip. She replied that it seemed like a perfectly fine thing for a young man like you to do! I hope your last few hours go well. Give my best to the rest of the crew.
Sincerely,
Bily Boy
By 2000 they had the first laptop PC on the market to include a DVD/CD-RW multi-drive, making it a must have purchase for anybody who’s occupation put them on the road or in the sky, and who was shuffling around massive amounts of text documents or other data.
In 2002 their protege 2000 managed to fit a 20GB Hard drive into a 50 percent smaller area than any other laptop HDD on the mainstream market at the time and they shipped the Satellite 5005-S507 which contained the industries leading Mobile GPU in the Geforce 4 440 Go.
Another first in 2002 was the first laptop with a built in DVD-r/rw drive in the Satellite 5205.
Toshiba started the Satellite lineup in the 1990’s, and stuck to a tight indrustrial-lite design language from the get go, I think this minimal design spoke to business oriented consumers, offering up an alternative to thinkpads that wasn’t too aggressive looking.
By 2007 they had the thinnest and lightest laptop that included optical media, then in 2008 they released the first laptop with 128GB solid state storage, and again in 2009 they set a first with the first 512GB ssd in an ultra-portable.
Their journey from the 80’s to their recent fall from greatness is an interesting one, and one that I am not connected to in any way outside of this laptop that we’re going to look at today. The Toshiba Satellite S855D S5120, which is an offering from the 2012 release season I believe.
… Here is my series on Toshiba’s Satellite.
LoSpec Linux Laptop Labs 