I just saw this on the BBC News rss feed:
Laptop Designer Honored. It brings back memories.
Back when I was in grad school, the Grid computer had just appeared. An ex-roommate of mine had just gotten a job with notorious Beltway Bandits BDM, and they had a contract to support the development of modern Light Infantry concepts at Fort Lewis in Tacoma. There was a Un*x component to the project, and a real shortage of Un*x knowledge amongst the BDM personal, and my roommate thought of me (me at the time being RPI's first proper Un*x administrator.) So I spent a spring break in sunny Tacoma teaching BDM folks Un*x basics (No, actually it was sunny that week. I understand that this is not normal.)
One aspect of the project was trying to deploy computing power in the field at the company level for the first time. That was where the Grid came in, it was the first computer to come along that even remotely seemed like it could be used that way. It was a cute little piece, I didn't get to spend much time with it, but it hinted at possibilities. These days, with netbooks and Macbook Airs and iPads and iPhones we don't think twice about mobile computing, but there was a time when it was merely a possibility, and the early 80s weren't really that long ago.
