Dynabook Inc. is a Japanese personal computer manufacturer that was owned by, and branded as, Toshiba from 1958 to 2018, but in 2018 became 80.1% owned by Sharp Corporation, in turn majority-owned by Foxconn. It claims its Toshiba T1100, launched as 1985, as the first mass-market laptop PC. Toshiba had used the brand name "DynaBook" or "dynabook" since 1989, , Dynabook Inc. said that it had 162.9 billion yen in annual sales and 2,680 employees;, Dynabook Americas described the business as being a "$60 billion global company employing nearly 200,000 in 30 countries".
History
The company began as Kawasaki Typewriter Co., Ltd. in 1954, but was bought by Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd.. Its name was changed to Toshiba Typewriter Co., Ltd. in 1958, Toshiba Business Machines Company in 1968, Toshiba Information Systems Corporation in 1984 after merging in Toshiba Business Computers Company, and Toshiba Client Solutions Co., Ltd. in 2016.
Laptop era
The dynabook was a portable computer concept first introduced by Alan C. Kay in the 1960s and 1970s. Tetsuya Mizoguchi, an executive in Toshiba's mainframe computer division, read Kay's paper "Personal Dynamic Media" in the March 1977IEEE Computer; and inspired by the concept of a computer that could be carried and used by anyone of any age, Mizoguchi became determined to develop such a computer. The Dynabook trademark was already owned by other companies Japan and the United States: Toshiba didn't use the name in the U.S., but ASCII Corporation had acquired the rights in Japan, so Toshiba paid a fee to ASCII to use the name there. The trademark rights in Britain, France, and West Germany were also able to be acquired. The first Toshiba computer with the name DynaBook was announced on June 26, 1989. In August 1989, Mizoguchi sent a letter and Toshiba DynaBook T1000SE to Kay in Boston, and in December Kay was Mizoguchi's guest at Toshiba. In 1990, the T1000SE became mandatory for all 82 students at Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne.
