Ultra-portable laptops demonstrate 'less is more' theory

My first laptop was a hand-me-down. Most readers would not even have heard of the company that made it. The Power Exec, by AST, was a grey, impressive hulk that tipped the scales at 4.5 kilograms but felt more like 10kg to my under-exercised biceps. It had a 17-centimetre colour display, an Intel Pentium processor and ran Windows 3.1 - state-of-the-art seven years ago.

Between using the keyboard, which required more finger pressure than kneading a ball of dough, to the now-antique trackball which does what a ball does best - roll away - the machine could offer RSI for life.

In its time, the Power Exec was regarded as a light, fully featured notebook computer. The ultra-portables, so popular today, were called sub-notebooks then and sub-notebooks had a bad name, just as the personal digital assistant did.

IBM was always innovating when it came to laptop designs. In 1995, it introduced the Butterfly, a small and light notebook computer which had a keyboard that unfolded outwards, like a butterfly spreading its wings, expanding to become a full 85-key keyboard.

It was similar in concept to today's stowaway keyboards that work with hand-held computers.

IBM's ThinkPad 701, better known as the Butterfly, arguably, made sub-notebooks popular. Until the ThinkPad 701, there was little reason to buy a sub-notebook. They compromised on performance, features and power to be a few grams lighter.