GRiD Systems Corporation was founded in January 1979 by John Ellenby, who left his job at Xerox Parc and joined Glenn Edens, Dave Paulsen and Bill Moggridge to form one of Silicon Valley's first stealth companies. The company went public in March 1981. It was located at 47211 Lakeview Boulevard, Fremont, California 94537.
The "GRiD" name with the unusual lowercase "i" in the middle was the result of discussion between John Ellenby, Glenn Edens and John Ellenby's wife, Gillian Ellenby, who pushed for the final choice. The lowercase "i" was a note of thanks to Intel for helping in the early days
GRiD developed and released several pioneering ideas:
First portable computer. Marketed almost exclusively to CEOs
The GRiD Compass 1100, the first clamshell laptop computer
Patented the "clamshell" laptop design
First portable to use non-volatile bubble-memory
GRiD-OS was a multi-tasking text user interface and operating system
First use of electro-luminescent displays in a portable
First use of magnesium for the case
First use of the Intel 8086 and 8087 floating-point co-processor in a commercial product.
Pioneered the concept of a "bus" for connecting peripherals (using GPIB)
First computer that included a fully functional telephone and telephone handset
The first commercially available tablet-type portable computer was the GRiDPad, released in September 1989. Its operating system was based on MS-DOS.
A GRiD Compass 1101 was the first laptop in space. Required special modification to add a fan to pull air through the case. Subsequently a GRiD 1530 flew on STS-29 in March 1989.
OldComputers.net called the 1982 GRiD Compass 1101 the "grand-daddy of all present-day laptop computers". It had 256k RAM, an 8086, 320x240 screen, and 384k of internal 'bubble memory' that held data with power off.
In 1988, Tandy Corporation purchased GRiD. AST Computer acquired the company, which then was acquired by Samsung.
Edens co-founded Waveform Corp and in 2003 joined the board of F5 Networks Inc.
John Ellenby went on to co-found the companies Agilis and Augmented Reality pioneer GeoVector.
