Laptop pioneer honoured with coveted lifetime achievement award

by Steven Mostyn - Nov 12 2010, 08:37

Selected from a shortlist of note, technology pioneer Bill Moggridge has been named the 2010 winner of the Prince Philip Designers Prize, which recognises lifetime contributions within the field of design.

For those who don’t know, Moggridge’s designs for GRiD Systems helped create the GRiD Compass in the early 1980s, a computing device widely viewed as a steppingstone to the portable laptop computer (as the above picture clearly shows).

Powered by its own GRiD operating system, the original clamshell GRiD Compass 1101 first went on sale back in 1982 and cost a pocket-busting $8,150 USD—a steep price point that limited the device’s appeal to affluent enthusiasts, the U.S. government, and NASA.

Core cutting-edge specifications associated with the computer spawned from Moggridge’s design included a 6.0-inch electroluminescent display (320 x 240), an Intel 8086 processor, 256k of DRAM, 384k of internal storage, and an external floppy disc drive.

Beyond having restricted consumer appeal due to its price, the GriD Compass was also far from shoulder friendly thanks to a sinew-straining weight of 4.6kg (most modern Netbooks weigh around 1kg).

Other nominees beaten to the design prize by Moggridge included the likes of Formula 1 car designer Adrian Newey and renowned fashion designer Vivienne Westwood,

Bill Moggridge currently serves as the director of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

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