Portable computer with tilting keyboard that exposes pointing device

A portable notebook computer has a base housing with a keyboard structure movably supported on its top side. The keyboard structure is movable relative to the base housing between a forwardly disposed, generally horizontal storage and transport orientation and a rearwardly shifted use orientation in which the keyboard structure is upwardly and rearwardly tilted. When the keyboard structure is in its storage and transport orientation a front side portion thereof covers an underlying pointing device, representatively a trackball device. When the keyboard structure is rearwardly shifted to its use orientation it uncovers the pointing device for operation by the computer user. Due to this vertical stacking of the keyboard structure and pointing device, the front-to-rear dimension of the computer base housing may be advantageously reduced. Additionally, due to the rearwardly and upwardly tilted use orientation of the keyboard structure its user operating comfort is enhanced.