When you think of a portable computer the first word that comes to mind is probably laptop or notebook. Probably, you are not even aware that there are such things as luggable portable computers, also known as lunchbox portables, or if you are knowledgeable of computer history you might vaguely recall seeing one of the portables but consider them dinosaurs relegated to technology's past.
Portable computers were PC manufacturers' first attempts to get the size and weight down and make it possible to transport computers from the office to the field without having to carry heavy computer cases and monitors. These portables used regular desktop motherboards, processors, ram and add-on cards like video, sound and fax/modem because their laptop counterparts had not yet been developed.
As powerful laptops began to appear on the scene in the early 1990s, these other portable devices surprising continued to remain on the market because their main weakness became their strength: their ability to integrate ordinary and specially made desktop add-on cards.
Many instruments and devices used in science and industry from EKG machines to USB 3.0 throughput testers began as desktop, rackmount or luggable portable computers with special hardware or software added. After these devices proved themselves in the prototype stage they were re-designed so they looked more like machines and less like the computers that they technically still were.
Today's laptops are much closer to desktops in terms of power and performance but in the push to make them as mobile as possible they had to eliminate expansion slots, at least the ISA and PCI slots of the regular desktop motherboards.
Nowadays, you would be hard-pressed to find a retail-market motherboard with even one ISA slot. They can still offer ISA slot because they can utilize the passive backplane and single board computer schemes seen with rackmount computers. There are many special-application ISA cards out there, especially in telephony. These cards may be so valuable that they outweigh the higher cost of portable computers.
Another advantage of the luggable portable computer over the laptop is its ability to incorporate many hard drives in the computer at the same time so that data-protecting RAID configurations can be employed. Dual-processor configurations are also possible if more processing power is required.
If you ever need to integrate desktop expansion cards into a mobile computer system, you may recall that there are other kinds of portable computers besides laptops.
Find useful information about portable computer at http://www.ajaxsys.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Dimapasok
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6147349
Portable computers were PC manufacturers' first attempts to get the size and weight down and make it possible to transport computers from the office to the field without having to carry heavy computer cases and monitors. These portables used regular desktop motherboards, processors, ram and add-on cards like video, sound and fax/modem because their laptop counterparts had not yet been developed.
As powerful laptops began to appear on the scene in the early 1990s, these other portable devices surprising continued to remain on the market because their main weakness became their strength: their ability to integrate ordinary and specially made desktop add-on cards.
Many instruments and devices used in science and industry from EKG machines to USB 3.0 throughput testers began as desktop, rackmount or luggable portable computers with special hardware or software added. After these devices proved themselves in the prototype stage they were re-designed so they looked more like machines and less like the computers that they technically still were.
Today's laptops are much closer to desktops in terms of power and performance but in the push to make them as mobile as possible they had to eliminate expansion slots, at least the ISA and PCI slots of the regular desktop motherboards.
Nowadays, you would be hard-pressed to find a retail-market motherboard with even one ISA slot. They can still offer ISA slot because they can utilize the passive backplane and single board computer schemes seen with rackmount computers. There are many special-application ISA cards out there, especially in telephony. These cards may be so valuable that they outweigh the higher cost of portable computers.
Another advantage of the luggable portable computer over the laptop is its ability to incorporate many hard drives in the computer at the same time so that data-protecting RAID configurations can be employed. Dual-processor configurations are also possible if more processing power is required.
If you ever need to integrate desktop expansion cards into a mobile computer system, you may recall that there are other kinds of portable computers besides laptops.
Find useful information about portable computer at http://www.ajaxsys.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Dimapasok
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6147349
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