Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 9, 2008



The PowerBook 100 is a portable subnotebook personal computer that was manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced on October 21, 1991 at the COMDEX computer expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Priced at US$2,300, the PowerBook 100 was the low-end model of the first three simultaneously released PowerBooks. Its features closely resembled those of its failed predecessor, the Macintosh Portable: a Motorola 68000 16-megahertz (MHz) processor, 2–8 megabytes (MB) of memory, a 9 in monochrome backlit liquid crystal display (LCD) with 640 &times; 400 pixel resolution, and the System 7.0.1 operating system. 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. Former Apple chief executive officer John Sculley started the PowerBook project in 1990, allocating $1 million for marketing. Despite the small marketing budget, the new PowerBook line was a success, generating over $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 PowerBook 100 as the greatest gadget of all time in 2005. (more...)

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