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Laptop computers: Ready when the idea strikes

By Linda May

Laptop and palmtop personal computers-light, slim, and increasingly powerful-make possible computing on the run. Two people who recently bought the diminutive machines tell their stories.

Marshalling evidence

Murray belongs to a national electronic discussion group on politics, economics, and science fiction where "the unspoken rule is that if you make a claim of fact, you better be prepared to back it up." Murray takes his palmtop to the library to collect notes and citations for his postings to the group. He's just finished researching a claim he made about the phone company that was challenged by someone in the group. "I'm in the process of selecting and organizing my notes. It turns out my motivation for making the claim is supported. The actual claim is false."

Murray buys online novels from a company that publishes special- interest authors and "authors who haven't been able to find publishers." As a man who once spent a whole day reading an online novel on the Poquet's 24 x 80 character screen, Murray says "it's more comfortable to read on paper, but not a lot more comfortable. In a few more years, it will catch up. And by the time you get nice graphics with hand-held machines, you'll find them to be superior to paper." Murray also downloads weekly summaries from an electronic information service on mainframe computing and reads them during his daily two-hour train ride. For Murray, the ability to search for specific words in the text "more than makes up for the tiny screen. That simple tool is so useful to me- if I had paper I wouldn't know what to do with it."

The Poquet is Murray's second portable computer. The impulse to buy his first-a 17 pound machine-came partly from the urge to keep a journal as he had done in high school. "For six months I carried the portable religiously on the train," but it turned out to be too much trouble. That machine became his home computer. Then "when I saw an ad for the Poquet, I very carefully forced myself to wait six months for the price to come down."

Murray keeps his calendar, his to-do list, his phone numbers, and his personal budget in the Poquet. He carries the palmtop "everywhere- if I go to a party, it may stay in the car or I may carry it in with me. I'm a folk musician. I put it in the same bag with my instruments." Does he worry about losing it? "I'm very conscious of where it is."

Using pockets of time

In some cases, the laptop lets him skip a step. "When I review a paper, I write the review as I read instead of scribbling in the margin. I think I write better reviews." And skipping a step is sometimes the difference between doing something and not following through. "If it gets in here, it gets done. Traditionally you get a business card with a request for a copy of a paper or something. Now I drop the request into Instant Recall [a personal information manager that can be used to track "to do" items, appointments, phone numbers, and other things]. In the old world that business card would sit in my coat pocket and go to the dry cleaner."

Does his new laptop do what he needs it to do? "I'd always had a laptop around, but they were not powerful enough. You always felt you were taking a big step downhill." The new 386 laptop replaces his office machine at the same time that as it serves as his portable computer. Its real advantage, though, is mobility. He finds himself more willing, for example, to give demonstrations of software he and his colleagues have written. "I don't have to worry about whether the config.sys file on a borrowed machine says the right thing or whether it's the right kind of mouse." And the laptop contains a database of citations he can draw on. "Unlike in the humanities, most of our literature is within the last ten years. If a Ph.D. or MBA student wants a reference, I can pull it up."