Powerbook The Apple
PowerBook series, introduced in October 1991, pioneered changes that are now
de facto standards on laptops, such as room for a
palm rest, and the inclusion of a pointing device (a
trackball). The following year, IBM released its
ThinkPad 700C, featuring a similar design (though with a distinctive red
TrackPoint pointing device).
Later
PowerBooks featured optional color displays (
PowerBook 165c, 1993), and first true
touchpad (
PowerBook 500 series, 1994), first
16-bit stereo audio, and first built-in
Ethernet network adapter (PowerBook 500, 1994).
IBM RS/6000 N40 In 1994,
IBM released the
RS/6000 N40 laptop based on a
PowerPC microprocessor running the
AIX operating system, a variant of
UNIX. It was manufactured by
Tadpole Technology (now Tadpole Computer), who also manufactured laptops based on
SPARC and
Alpha microprocessors, the
SPARCbook and ALPHAbook lines, respectively.