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Bill Moggridge | Designed early laptop, 69

NEW YORK - Bill Moggridge, 69, a British industrial designer who created an early portable computer with the flip-open shape that is common today, has died.

This undated photo provided by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum shows Director Bill Moggridge. Moggridge, a British industrial designer who designed an early portable computer with the flip-open shape that is common today, has died. He was 69. The museum said Moggridge, its director since 2010, died on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012 from cancer. (AP Photo/Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum)
This undated photo provided by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum shows Director Bill Moggridge. Moggridge, a British industrial designer who designed an early portable computer with the flip-open shape that is common today, has died. He was 69. The museum said Moggridge, its director since 2010, died on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012 from cancer. (AP Photo/Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum)Read moreAP
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NEW YORK - Bill Moggridge, 69, a British industrial designer who created an early portable computer with the flip-open shape that is common today, has died.

Moggridge is credited with the design of the Grid Compass, a computer that had a keyboard and yellow-on-black display that sold for $8,150 when it was released in 1982. It was encased in magnesium and seen as rugged, and was used by the U.S. military. The computer made its way into outer space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1985.

Although there were many portable computers being developed around that time, Grid Systems Corp. won the patent for the clamshell design with the foldable screen hinged toward the back of the machine, said Alex Bochannek, a curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

Moggridge pushed for this foldable design when it was realized the flat-panel screen, keyboard and circuitry could all fit snugly together.

"In terms of the industrial design of the enclosure, Moggridge was instrumental in proposing that," Bochannek said. "He came up with that particular form factor."

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