Yes it is true! It is little known that engineers in the electrical industry in Australia invented the first laptop that was powered by battery. It was called the Dulmont Magnum Kookaburra Laptop PC. It was designed by John Blair and David Irwin, and sported a 186 CPU and released in 1983. It weighed just under five kilograms. The LCD screen even folded onto the keyboard like modern laptops. It was literally the granddaddy of modern laptops, and could be taken anywhere, and be run on battery power. Just to take note, it is not uncommon for laptops these days (in 2021) to have 512GB of SSD space. The state of technology in 1983 had just 10MB of Hard Disk Space. Laptops have come a long way since 1983!

The company that invented it nearly went bankrupt, but secured a $800,000 grant from the Australian Government to finish the project. David was a freelancing engineer working on the project. Programs could be written in BASIC or assembly. The cost of laptops have also come down these days. The Kookaburra Laptop PC retailed for just under $3000 in ’83, which today is worth just under $8,700. Ultimately the company was bought by Time Office Computers (manufacturing) Pty Ltd. It is also the only laptop to have been produced in Australia.