National Media Museum blog
From Bradford, UNESCO City of Film, we write about film, photography, television, animation, gaming and the web.
Remembering Bill Moggridge, Designer of the Modern Laptop: 25 June 1943 – 8 September 2012
This morning it was announced that Bill Moggridge, a British designer responsible for the design of the modern laptop computer, passed away this weekend on September 8th after a battle with cancer.
Bill Moggridge, Director, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
Image Copyright: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Released in April 1982, the GRiD Compass 1100 laptop computer was designed by Mr Moggridge and the team at GRiD Defense Systems in Middlesex, to be a portable and robust machine that could be used anywhere.
With a case created from magnesium alloy, a whopping 340 kb of processing memory and an internal dial-up modem, the GRiD Compass cost a pricely £5000 and was popular with the US Military and NASA.
The powerful and lightweight 5 kg laptop was used by US paratroopers during combat and journeyed into outer space in 1985 aboard the Discovery Space Shuttle.
Compass computer for GRiD Systems. Designed by Bill Moggridge. Palo Alto, CA, 1982. Photo: Don Fogg
Image Copyright: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution
The flip-open ‘clamshell’ design of the GRiD Compass was a step forward in design and still influences the look and feel of laptop computers being produced today.
Before Moggridge’s design, portable computers were more akin to small suitcases such as the Osborne 1 that weighed in at a wrist-straining 10.7kg, or machines such as the Epson HX-20 that featured a tiny screen combined with a full keyboard.
Osborne 1 portable computer, 1981.
Image from the National Media Museum Collection
Epson HX-20 portable computer, 1982
Image from the National Media Museum Collection
In 2010, Bill Moggridge was appointed as Director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York where he worked to establish the importance of design in everyday life.
If you’re interested to find out more about the history of computer design but can’t afford the flight to New York, then we have a cracking timeline of computers and gadgets in our Life Online gallery.
Amstrad Notepad NC100 portable computer.
Image from the National Media Museum Collection
I never used a GRiD Compass, an Osborne 1 or an Epson HX-20 but I do remember tapping away on an Amstrad Notepad in the early 90s. I remember being frustrated at the small amount of text you could see on the screen at any one time but the big colourful buttons were a definite plus. What was the first portable computer or laptop you ever used?
About Tom Woolley
