Grid Compass

The Grid Compass is a family of laptop computers that Grid Systems Corporation introduced in 1982. The industrial design of the Compass was rendered by Bill Moggridge, and because of its clamshell form, which was the first seen in a portable computer, some historians credit the original Compass as the first laptop ever made. That priority is a credit given by some historians rather than a settled fact. The first Compass 1101 used an Intel 8086 processor and ran CCOS, the Compass Computer Operating System, with MS-DOS 2 as an option, and it kept its data on magnetic bubble memory. This original model had no internal battery compartment, so it needed mains power from the wall. Grid sold the succeeding Compass II in 1984 with an optional external battery unit, and in 1985 it replaced the Compass with the GridCase line.