WHY I STILL USE A MODEL 100 By J.D. Hildebrand If you find my name familiar, you qualify as an old-timer in the Model 100 community. I haven't been active in the laptop world since my Laptop User magazine folded amid lawsuits and controversy in 1987. But I still love my 100. The Model 100 was good to me before 1987. I got my first one right after Tandy introduced 'em in 1983. I was working at Portable Computer magazine in San Francisco at the time...I loved the unit. (I had a NEC PC-8201 and an Olivetti M-10--two M100 clones--too.) Later, I joined tiny Camden Communications Inc. in Camden, Maine, where I served as editorial director and editor of Portable 100, which was eventually renamed Portable 100/200 and briefly, over my protests, Portable 100/200/600. CCI was a great company but it folded for various complicated reasons. They stopped publishing Portable 100 in early 1986, after I'd left the company. I still loved the 100, though, so in 1987 I launched Laptop User. I think it was a pretty good magazine. Some of my articles are still in the LIBs here. We published a couple issues, then I got a call from IDG. You may know IDG: It's the world's largest publisher of computer magazines. They said they were going to revive Portable 100 and compete with me. Me, compete with the biggest computer-magazine publisher in the world? Gulp. Should I continue publishing? Yeah, maybe. But I found something curious. The advertisers in Laptop User's second issue weren't paying up. I called to find out why. "Oh, we heard from IDG that you were folding," they told me. "They said you were out of business and that we shouldn't bother to pay you." Sigh. This was bad news indeed (and, I am told, illegal behavior on IDG's part, if indeed their agents advised people not to pay up). If you can't beat 'em, they say--and I was pretty sure I couldn't--then join 'em. So I began talking with IDG about merging Laptop User and the reborn Portable 100. On May 1, 1987, I sent a seven-page proposal to the president, chief financial officer, and group publisher of the IDG subsidiary that had decided to revive Portable 100. I offered to sell them Laptop User's mailing list, article backlog, and receivables at a greatly discounted rate. I even offered to serve as editor of the revived, merged publication. They seemed interested; they invited me up to visit their offices. But when I got there for the appointment they were too busy to talk to me. They left me in the lobby all morning, then around 3:00 the CFO finally met with me for five minutes. He told me my proposal was no good and I should forget it. I drove home, angry over the shabby treatment I'd received, and the next day GAVE Laptop User to Terry Kepner. Laptop User subscribers received subscriptions to Pico. Most of the advertisers never paid up. I wound up $35,000 in debt...only last year did I settle with the last of my creditors. It was a strain, though; somewhere along the way my wife decided she didn't want to put up with it anymore, so she split. My venture into entrepreneurial publishing wasn't, all in all, a pleasant one. Oh yeah. It's worth mentioning that IDG published only a couple issues of Portable 100 before losing interest in the project and shutting it down. (Terry wound up with it, too.) I try not to take it personally...but IDG did lose thousands of dollars on that magazine while publishing only a handful of issues...the only real difference they made in the Model 100 community was bankrupting me and killing Laptop User. I have to wonder if that wasn't their intent. After all that, I should by rights hate the M100. Every time I see one, it's a reminder of the Laptop User days and the long, painful period that followed. But I still use my 100. And I'm convinced that it is the most useful portable on the market. The Model 100 is the only laptop that gives users access to Opportunity Computing. And I'm convinced that Opportunity Computing is important. "Opportunity Computing" means you can carry the computer around even when you have no specific plans to use it. It's just there, like your pocket knife, ready if and when you need it. The 100's long battery life, full-size keyboard, built-in software, and handy dimensions make it the ideal computer for all the times you find you unexpectedly need a computer. Oh, I've tried the handhelds, the overgrown pocket calculators with chiclet keys. I recognize that they pack more computing power than the 100. But their tiny screens and keyboards, and their reliance on MS-DOS software designed for desktop use, make them less useful than the 100. I don't carry a handheld. But the 100 has earned a permanent place in my briefcase, backpack, and suitcase. I've continued to work in publishing, most recently as editor of UNIX Review and editorial director of Computer Language and Embedded Systems Programming-- all magazines for professional programmers. Like a lot of members of the M100 community, I've moved on. I'm moving on again, next week, to another little entrepreneurial publishing company with a lot of heart and no money. It's my destiny, I sometimes think. Of course I'm taking my 100s with me. And when the Toshiba snobs look down their noses at me, I'll just smile. They'll find soon enough that it's simply too much trouble to carry a 12-pound laptop if you can get by without it. And I'll quietly pull out my battered, archaic, lovable old 100 as the need arises. I don't know exactly why I've written this...I've no interest in stirring up old memories among people who have rightfully moved on to new pursuits. But I thought the members of the Model 100 community, who have treated me so generously and well over the years--like family, really--deserved to hear the final chapter of the Laptop User story, finally.