John C. Dvorak:

We need a publicly maintained resource — such as a wiki — detailing the history some of these old machines.

I put the list in this column together largely from the collective memory of myself and my colleagues. Some dates are missing, and I hope readers can make contributions. And so many machines made this list that I had to combine a few into categories.

Worst Laptops

1. The Gavilan (1983)
2. Zenith Minisport (1989)
3. Apple iBook (1999)
4. Compaq laptops with screen trackballs (circa 1994)
5. IBM ThinkPad 701C "Butterfly" (1995)
6. Category failure: Ultra-small, full-featured machines
7. Category failure: Pad-based computers
8. Macintosh Portable (1989)
9. Dell 320i (circa 1993)
10. Gateway Handbook (circa 1992)