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"My feeling is that the chance of our surviving into the twenty-first century as working civilization is less than fifty percent but greater than zero."
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This term just gets a brief reference in the book. The book was published in 1981; probably written in 1980. At that time, Apple II computers were just breaking into the non-hobbyist market.
The first real briefcase consoles (probably the Osbourn) also came out in 1981. The Osborne I was the first complete portable microcomputer, with 64 K, two floppy discs, the CP/M operating system, and BASIC for $1795.
One of my absolute favorite computers was the Toshiba 5200, a "laptop" computer sold in 1988 that fits the description of a briefcase console to a "T". It weighed about 15 pounds; it was really a portable workstation. As I recall, I paid about $4,200 for it. It had room for internal PC cards, Intel 80386 whipping along at 11Mhz, 100 Mbytes of internal hard drive storage, and had a 13" 640x480 VGA orange gas plasma flat screen that was, hands down, the best display then available. So cool, I provide a picture:
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
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