1983: Byte Magazine reviews the very first Compaq clone PC - 28 pounds and portable!
- May 16th, 2008
- Read 2989 times
- 2 Comments
I’ll let the article do the talking here. Who doesn’t love this vintage computing stuff? I hardly understand most of it since I grew up with DOS, Windows 3.1 and Mac OS 6 more than anything else, but it’s great to take a trip to the deeper past every once in a while. My favorite part:
The Compaq computer is designed to be portable, and although it weighs 28 pounds, it achieves that goal. To transport it, you simply secure the keyboard to the main unit by locking two sliding latches. The closed case measures 20 by 8.5 by 15.3 inches and has a built-in carrying handle.
So very portable.
Kevin Haggerty (Who am I?)
1 month ago
We had one of those babies when I was younger. It was pretty sweet!
Ted (Who am I?)
1 month ago
I cut my teeth as a tech working on these things when they first came out. They were great, and their owners loved them. Even after they were obsolete, I would see them tucked away, purring along in industrial environments as data acquisition or industrial control boxes.
They were extremely reliable, most of the work I would do on them were upgrades, such as replacing the 10 Mb drive with a big ol’ 20 or even 40 Mb drive. Only rarely did I have to do any warranty work such as replace the power supply or maybe a system board.
We called them such names as “luggables”, “suitcases” or “sewing machines”.