PowerBook 100

PowerBook 100

The PowerBook 100 is a portable subnotebook personal computer designed and manufactured by Sony for Apple Computer. It was introduced on October 21, 1991, at the COMDEX computer expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Priced at US$2,300, the PowerBook was the low-end model of the first three simultaneously released PowerBooks. It has since been replaced by the Macbook Pro, which was released in September 1998 and sold for $2,000 to $3,000.

About PowerBook 100 in brief

Summary PowerBook 100The PowerBook 100 is a portable subnotebook personal computer designed and manufactured by Sony for Apple Computer. It was introduced on October 21, 1991, at the COMDEX computer expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Priced at US$2,300, the PowerBook was the low-end model of the first three simultaneously released PowerBooks. It did not have a built-in floppy disk drive and was noted for its unique compact design that placed a trackball pointing device in front of the keyboard for ease of use. Despite the small marketing budget, the new PowerBook line was a success, generating over USD 1 billion in revenue for Apple in its first year. Since then, it has been praised several times for its design; PC World named the Powerbook 100 the tenth-greatest PC of all time in 2006, and US magazine Mobile PC chose the Power Book 100 as the greatest gadget of alltime in 2005. The PowerBook 145 and PowerBook Duo series were discontinued on September 3, 1992, and superseded by the Power book 140 and Powerbook Duo series. Apple surpassed Toshiba and Compaq as the market leader in worldwide share of portable computer shipments. In August 1992, Apple quietly dropped the powerBook 100 from its price list from its own stores, but continued to sell existing stock through its own consumer-oriented stores as well as discount stores such as Price Club Club.

It has since been replaced by the Macbook Pro, which was released in September 1998 and sold for $2,000 to $3,000. Apple’s then-chief executive officer John Sculley started the PowerBooks project in 1990, allocating USD 1-million for marketing. Sculpley allocated a USD1-million marketing budget to the Power Booker product line, in contrast to the USD 25-million used to market the Macintosh Classic. The project had three managers: John Medica, who managed engineering for the new laptop; Randy Battat, who was the vice president for product marketing; and Neil Selvin, who headed the marketing effort. By January 1992,Apple had sold more than 100,000 PowerBooks, by which time they were in short supply. At the end of the financial year, Apple announced its highest figures yet, USD 7.1billion in revenues and an 8% market share from 5% to 8% in four years in the last four years of the last decade of the 1990s. In December 1991, the 140 and 170 models had become more popular because they were willing to pay more for a built in floppy drive and a second serial port, which the second PowerBook lacked. It had a Motorola 68000 16-megahertz processor, 2-8 megabytes of memory, and a 9-inch monochrome backlit liquid crystal display with 640 × 400 pixel resolution, and the System 7. 1 operating system.