The "Trash-80" (TRS-80 Model I) was not a laptop, but the Radio Shack Model 100 most certainly qualified. It was a brick -- no clamshell -- with a full-travel QWERTY keyboard on the bottom and a rinky-dink nonbacklit calculator display on top. It came with BASIC and some other rudimentary applications. The OS was menu-driven, and was the last significant piece of software that Bill Gates personally contributed to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100

Writers loved these things because they lasted for ages on a set of AA cells.