Sepia Saturday 291, 2015 August 8: The Osborne 1, My First Computer

 Although Alan left us with "telly's" whilst he went Wales Watching, my brain took a sharp left turn.  I saw all of those little roundish screens looking out of the photo and my mind fixated on a time in my life that our office had a mighty contingent of little screens looking back at us.  Now I am talking little screens, tiny 5 inch screens.  The Osborne 1, the first really portable and affordable computer.  What!  You've never hear of the Osborne Computer!  Yeah, I get that response --- along with weird looks -- when I mention my love affair with the Osborne computer.

The year was about 1982.  My business partner and best friend, and I had started a vocational rehabilitation company in the fall of 1978.  By the time the Osborne hit the shelves, the company had grown far beyond the "2-gal" shop that we had first envisioned.  We had a staff that included several counselors, and a clerical support staff.  We were awash in paper -- reports, evaluations, reports, and did I mention reports. Oh, but, wait, I am getting ahead of myself.

My alpha geeky son had been extolling the benefits I would have if I only would buy one of these new "gadgets", at least to me that was what I thought of  a portable computer.  The final selling point to me was that I wouldn't have to hand write my reports.  I could use a computer with its "real" word processing program Wordstar.  I was a convert.

So I plunked down the $1795 for my own personal portable computer.  I showed up at the office with the Osborne 1, which was as big as  my portable sewing machine -- not that portable though I did haul it the breadth and width of the state.  The clerical staff "ooh-ed and ahh-ed" over the computer.  They hated my hand writing!!!  After a report or so that came off of the computer, mumbling was heard from the clerical staff that they needed the computer more than I, after all they had ALL of the reports to type, not just mine.  So I lost my first Osborne.

I missed my computer, so not too much later, the company bought a new computer for me -- after all, I had lost my first computer to the clerical staff.  However, we had a cadre of fast fingered typist that just couldn't wait to get rid of carbon paper and white out.  And, yes, the second Osborne went the way of the first, as did the third Osborne.  When I got the fourth Osborne, I was sure it was for me!  Not so!  The bookkeeping and number crunching staff were saying, "When do we get a computer?" Number four had been spoken for!  The fifth Osborne was mine -- of course, by that time the little Osborne had had it's day in the sun and was due to be replaced by computers with newer operating systems, larger screens and more bells and whistles.

The Osborne had its drawbacks.  The tiny

5 inch display resulted in eyestrain, headaches and, of course, errors.  So new larger monitors HAD to be purchased.  Then there was the need for copious numbers of 5¼" floppy disks.  Each disk only held a piddly 185kb of data --  we thought that was a huge amount in those days.  We had hundreds floppy disks, which required a dedicated filing system and protocols for the multitude of report -- and floppy disks.

I also remember the day that I watched in horror as my alpha geeky son fearlessly dismantled that first little Osborne.  It's little drives, boards, the thing-a-mabobs strewn across the kitchen bar and much messier than the picture to the right,but with no notes as to what was what and where did it go.  Nonetheless, he kept our phalanx of tiny screened computers running and putting out ever so much data so that our little company was heads above in the technology of most of similar companies of the day.  Not only did we put out hundreds of pages of reports a week, but we also had a data base that produced more timely and accurate information for our company than did the State for which we worked.

 Adam Osborne's dream of  world of personal computers was actually realized, but not how he envisioned Osborne's place in the computer world.  He and his portable computer had a very short time in the spotight.  His company could not compete with the names on the horizon -- KayPro, Atari, Commodore, TRS, TI and Apple, just to name a few.

  As computers changed, so did our company -- but I remember fondly of the days when we thought that we were on the "cutting edge" of technology.  And I guess, for the time and place, perhaps we were close  -- at least for small company and people who hadn't even dreamed of using a computer a few short years before.

Now check out the offerings of our fellow Sepians.

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 © Joan G. Hill, Roots'n'Leaves Publications