Start here · Essential guide
The Development of the First Mobile Devices
A plain-language overview of how pocketable computing grew from calculators and electronic organizers through personal digital assistants to smartphones.
Machines and Interfaces
Mobile Computing
Laptops, phones and handheld devices.
The Development of the First Laptop
How portable computers moved from heavy luggable machines to clamshell designs in the early 1980s, and why several early models claim the title of first laptop.
The Story Behind the First Mobile Phone: A Computing Pioneer
How handheld cellular telephones grew out of radio networks in the 1970s and 1980s, with credit shared among engineers, companies and national systems.
Related topics
More in machines and interfaces
Hardware and Systems From vacuum tubes to chips: the machines and the system software that ran them. Interfaces and Input How people came to talk to computers through keyboards, mice and screens. Early Machines ENIAC, early electronic and commercial computers, and the mainframe era. Personal Computers How microprocessors and hobby kits led to computers at home. Storage and Displays The media that held data and the screens that showed it, from cards to flash.