In 1983, Compaq produced the most commercially successful portable laptop in this field.
Alan Kay of Xerox Corporation coined the term Dynabook for the first time in 1971. Kay's idea was a portable, networked personal computer. However, the idea was shelved as there was no market at the time that could be interested in such a product. In 1981, Alan Osborne of the Osborne Computer Corporation produced the first fully portable personal computer, which he called the Osborne 1. This laptop, which measures in a small hand luggage, weighed 11 kilograms.
The first laptop design that could be opened like a clam shell was the GRiD Compass 1101 portable computer, invented by Bill Moggride, and was released in 1982. The portable computer produced by Galivan Computer in 1983 is shown as the first real "laptop" computer. This computer was the smallest and lightest portable computer ever produced.
However, Compaq Computer Corporation quickly captured the portable computer market with the Compaq Portable laptop it developed in 1983. Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto formed Compaq in 1982 after leaving Texas Instruments. There is even an urban legend that the Compaq Portable was designed with drawings on the placemat from a donut shop in Houston. This computer worked just like IBM's systems, with the IBM BIOS source code reverse engineered. This actually shows how important a role IBM played in the computer market at that time. This is the reason why these computers were called IBM compatible for a long time.
Compaq had its highest revenue ever in 1983. Laptops produced following the success of the Compaq Portable have continually evolved to be thinner and lighter than their predecessors, paving the way for today's laptops that are only a few millimeters thin and weigh a few hundred grams.