Interesting! Unless my memory fails me, I don't remember having seen one until college (which I started in 2000), except on TV or in movies. And even then it was rare; not many college students prior to ~2002-03 had laptops. Wonder why not. I wonder what the figures would look like if you separated business and private sales?

I got my first laptop in 2003, when I went to college. I went to a lame state school, nothing fancy smancy, and it wasn't an uncommon thing at all to have a laptop. I didn't feel specially privileged, and I remember a number of people that had them. One of the wealthier kids in my high school even had a laptop/tablet hybrid thing a couple years before that -- one of those early ones that had a full version of Windows and a stylus.