British laptop designer, Bill Moggridge, signs off

The man who gave the world the first modern laptop with a foldable design has died.

Bill Moggridge, a British industrial designer came up with an early portable computer with the flip-open model that is common today. He was 69 and had been fighting cancer.

According to the BBC, Moggridge designed the Grid Compass, a computer with a keyboard and a yellow-on-black display.

You could pick one up for £5,091 in 1982. The device was encased in magnesium, and it was used by the US military. It was also aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1985.

Grid Systems Corp won the patent because it had a clamshell design with a foldable screen hinged toward the back of the machine.

Moggridge worked it out when he realised the flat-panel screen, keyboard and circuitry could fit snugly together.

Before that, portable computers were huge and weighed more than 9kg.
