As I mentioned in the video camera entry, I like showcasing old technology to appreciate it, not to laugh at its inadequacies. Here's another great example. By 1989, I had only seen one computer that could be close to being considered a laptop. It had a tiny little screen next to a disk drive, and it was all attached to a keyboard. It was still a pretty substantial machine, so in reality it was more like a portable PC than a laptop. I'll admit to being late to the whole home computer game, but I don't think laptops were commonplace yet by this time. This was still cutting edge. Looking at this notebook computer's specifications, it's a wonder we were able to get anything done. First of all, you can see that it had a whopping 640k of RAM (I know, if you know nothing about computers, that means nothing to you.)  The picture you see above you? Admittedly, it's a pretty big picture (reduced dramatically for use on this page), but it's 603k by itself. In the description of the computer, it goes on to say that it has an 8 MHz processor. The lowest-end laptop on Best Buy's site right now has a processor speed of 1.6 GHz. You can also see that this laptop came with Prodigy. If you're like me, it's hard to imagine people going online 17 years ago, but they could. For those who don't know, Prodigy was one of the first (if not the first) online services. Consider it the forerunner to (and eventually, casualty of) AOL. The screen says that Prodigy was created by IBM and Sears, which I did not realize. According to Wikipedia (believe at your own risk), the software wasn't officially launched nationally until September of 1990, which means that we're witnessing the birth of a revolution here. As Pigpen would say, "Kind of makes you want to treat me with...a little more respect...doesn't it?" Actually, that quote really doesn't apply very well. It just popped in my head and I wanted to use it. You can move on now...