OREANDA-NEWS. Toshiba Corporation announced that the company's T1100 laptop PC, first shipped in Europe in 1985, has received certification as a major innovation under the IEEE Milestone Program. The T1100 was recognized for its invaluable contribution to the development of laptop PC.

The IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., the world's leading professional association for electrical and electronics engineers, established the Milestones Program in 1983 in order to recognize important historical achievements. Approximately 140 milestones have been awarded worldwide. For Toshiba, this will be 2nd award since Toshiba's JW-10 Japanese-language word processor also won recognition as an IEEE Milestone in 2008.

Toshiba started development of an IBM PC-compatible laptop PC in 1984, when IBM PC compatibles were the de facto standard for desktop PCs. Released in Europe in 1985, the T1100 had an immediate impact and made an a major contribution to the emergence and subsequent growth of the laptop PC market. The T1100 offered a high-resolution LCD display, and was equipped with a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive to reduce overall size. Newly developed power control software helped secure a battery life of up to eight hours. Even with all these features, the T1100 weighed only about 4.1 kg.

In the early 1980s, desktop PC were usually set up on dedicated desks that users had to go to. The T1100 won market acceptance for its portability, and sold 10,000 units in just its first year in the market, most in Europe. In 1986, Toshiba launched the T3100, which had a hard disk drive, the world's first in a laptop PC, and a high-performance CPU that had previously been used only in desktop PCs. Building on these achievements, Toshiba continued to extend its portfolio of laptop PCs, and started to ship them in the United States and Japan as well. Toshiba's laptop PCs including the T1100, continually led the expanding PC market, promoting the emergence and growth of a parts industry for portable equipment and significantly contributing to the evolution of information society.

Toshiba will display T1100 on permanent exhibition with the IEEE Milestone Award plaque in the new Toshiba Science Museum, which will reopen in Kawasaki City in the beginning of 2014.