Lee Felsenstein (born April 27, 1945) is an American computer engineer who played a central role in the development of the personal computer. He was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computer Club and the designer of the Osborne 1, the first mass-produced portable computer. Before the Osborne, Felsenstein designed the Intel 8080 based "SOL" computer from Processor Technology, the PennyWhistle modem, and other early "S-100 bus" era designs. His shared-memory alphanumeric video display design, the Processor Technology VDM-1 video display module board, was widely copied and became the basis for the standard display architecture of personal computers. Many of his designs were leaders in reducing costs of computer technologies for the purpose of making them available to large markets. His work featured a concern for the social impact of technology and was influenced by the philosophy of Ivan Illich. Felsenstein was the engineer for the Community Memory project, one of the earliest attempts to place networked computer terminals in public places to facilitate social interactions among individuals, in the era before the commercial Internet. Life Felsenstein graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia as a member of class 219. As a young man, Felsenstein was a New Left radical. From October through December 1964, he was a participant in the Free Speech Movement and was one of 768 arrested in the climactic "Sproul Hall Sit-In" of December 2–3, 1964. He also wrote for the Berkeley Barb, one of the leading underground newspapers. He had entered University of California, Berkeley first in 1963, joined the Co-operative Work-Study Program in Engineering in 1964 and dropped out at the end of 1967, working as a Junior Engineer at the Ampex Corporation from 1968 through 1971, when he re-enrolled at Berkeley. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1972. From 1981–1983, Felsenstein was employed at the Osborne Computer Corporation. At Osborne, he was the designer of the Osborne 1, the first mass-produced portable computer. He then returned to freelance consulting. In 1992, he joined Interval Research Corporation, where he worked until 2000. From then until 2005, he worked for Pemstar Pacific Consultants, an electronics design and contract manufacturing firm, which was subsequently acquired by Benchmark Electronics. Throughout, he acted as an occasional free-lance consulting designer or worked at his own design firm. Many of his designs were leaders in reducing the