Laptop Inventor Dies

A name you probably never heard of, but use his invention every day, passed away Saturday after a battle with cancer. Bill Moggridge, the inventor of the modern day laptop computer died at the age of 69 and is credited with creating the flip-open form of the laptop computer.  The design had a keyboard and yellow on black display and was released in 1982.

It was encased in magnesium and considered very rugged and was
used by the United States military, at a  cost of $8,000 each,  and even
made its way into outer space on the space shuttle Discovery in 1985. Moggridge
said he developed the design when he realized the flat panel screen, keyboard
and circuitry could all fit snugly together. Up until this time most computers
looked like a sewing machine and weighed almost 20 lbs.

His computer was known as The Grid Compass and it's magnesium case design was distictive because the screen display folded down over the keyboard.  Mr. Moggridge founded a London-based design company in 1969 which is now a global consultancy firm. Mr Moggridge was the director of the Smithsonian’s
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York since 2010.