I'm sad to report that Adam Osborne has died. See:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=581&e=2&cid=581&u=/nm/20030324/tc_nm/tech_osborne_dc
Osborne Computer Company was a short-lived company which few people may ever have heard of, but in 1981 introduced the worlds first "portable" computer, or what we call the laptop computer. Some detailed information and pictures are available at:
A brief history
- March 1980: At the West Coast Computer fair Adam Osborne approaches Lee Felsenstein with the idea of acomputer company.
- April 1981: Adam Osborne introduces the Osborne 1 Personal Business Computer at the West Coast Computer fair. Base price is $1795, and includes a built in 5" display, 64kb of RAM, keyboard, numeric keypad, modem, and two 5.25" disk drives. It also had $1500 of software built in including CP/M, BASIC, WordStar, and SuperCalc.
- September 1981: They had anticipated selling about 10,000 units, but quickly surpassed that figure, and Osborne now had its first $1 million sales month.
- March 1983: Osborne introduces the new and larger Executive, and they annouce the Vixen, an MS-DOS compatible computer. Customers stop buying the old systems waiting for the Vixen.
- September 1983: Osborne runs out of money and goes bankrupt.
The old head quarters are at: 26538 Danti Court*, and the cache isn't too far away. As part of your log should be some attempt to find the original address.
* The only reference I have lists 28538 Danti Court as the address, but that address simply doesn't exist anymore. Since Danti court only contains the 26000 block, I think it's problably a typo. If anyone has any more information I'de appreciate it.
The cache is in a normal tupperware container, and started out as:
- Log+Pen
- Camera (please take a picture, let me know when it's full)
- Modem
- Hamonica
- AMC Free movie passes. They're in packages of 2, please only take what you need.
Pictures
Camera is back from developing! Click on the pic for a larger version. Here's the pics: