Morrow Pivot II & other portable computers
The Morrow Pivot II, 1985, was a portable personal computer 100% compatible with IBM PC Software. It was designed by Norman Towson and Micheal Stolowitz, and manufactured by Morrow Designs. With two drives, 320 kilobytes of memory, and a monochrome backlit liquid-crystal display, the Pivot II had a list price of US$ 1,995.
The Morrow Pivot II included one or two 5–1/4″ floppy drives.[1]This machine was in a vertical configuration with a fold down keyboard. This was called a “lunch box” style unlike the typical laptop today. The only external component was a single AC adapter. It would have been a little top heavy except for the large Panasonic camcorder battery loaded into its base.
The Pivot II design was licensed to Zenith Data Systems for $2M and sold as the Zenith Z-171; Zenith sold over $500M to the US government, many to the Internal Revenue Service. The IBM-compatible Pivot II was Morrow’s first non-Z80 machine. While modern laptops don’t share its design, it was arguably the most practical machine until desktops embraced 3–1/2″ floppies. Robert Dilworth went from being General Manager of Morrow Designs to being CEO of Zenith Data Systems for years as part of Zeniths paying him to talk George Morrow into licensing the Pivot to them. (from Wikipedia)
A look at the first generation of portable computers. Featured are the Morrow Pivot Portable, the HP 110 Portable, Texas Instruments ProLite Portable, and the Data General DG-1 Portable. Guests include George Morrow, Srini Nageswar, Farris Gaffrey, and Roland Archer. Originally broadcast in 1985. Copyright 1985 Stewart Cheifet Productions.
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Originally published at www.aneddoticamagazine.com.
