According to the Wall Street Journal, “The first machine that looked like today’s laptops—flat screen in a clamshell design over the keyboard—was the GRiD Compass. British designer Bill Moggridge created it in 1979, and it was actually manufactured in 1982. The sleek, black magnesium case was a knockout, and so was the $10,000 price tag. But it too depended on AC power. Batteries weren’t up to the task of powering the electroluminescent display and Intel 8086 processor. At a mere five pounds without its external disk drive, the Compass found applications on U.S. space missions and in the military. It was too expensive for business applications and it didn’t follow the IBM PC standard, which was rapidly becoming the basis for business computing. But it was the die from which virtually every practical laptop computer was cast.” View some of the custom business bags we offer wholesale below.