Compaq Portable
Compaq Portable Plus |
The Compaq Portable is an early
It became available two years after the similar, but
Other contemporary systems include the portable
Production and sales
The Compaq Portable was announced in November 1982 and first shipped in March 1983,
IBM responded to the Compaq Portable with the
Compaq sold 53,000 units in the first year with a total of US$111 million in revenue, an American Business record. In the second year revenue hit US$329 million setting an industry record. Third year revenue was at US$503.9 million, another US business record.[11]
Design
The Compaq Portable has basically the same hardware as an
The machine has a hybrid of the
Compaq used a "foam and foil" keyboard from Keytronics, with contact mylar pads that were also featured in the Tandy TRS-80, Apple Lisa 1 and 2, Compaq Deskpro 286 AT, some mainframe terminals, SUN Type 4, and some Wang keyboards. The foam pads the keyboards used to make contact with the circuit board when pressed disintegrate over time, due to both the wear of normal use and natural wear. The CRT display also suffered from a low refresh rate and heavy ghosting.
Software
Compaq's efforts were possible because IBM had used mostly off-the-shelf parts for the PC and published full technical documentation for it, and because Microsoft had kept the right to license MS-DOS to other computer manufacturers. The only difficulty was the BIOS, because it contained IBM's copyrighted code. Compaq solved this problem by producing a clean room workalike that performed all documented functions of the IBM PC BIOS, but was completely written from scratch.
Although numerous other companies soon also began selling PC compatibles, few matched Compaq's achievement of essentially-complete software compatibility with the IBM PC (typically reaching "
The first Portables used Compaq DOS 1.10,[citation needed] essentially identical to PC DOS 1.10 except for having a standalone BASIC that did not require the IBM PC's ROM Cassette BASIC, but this was superseded in a few months by DOS 2.00 which added hard disk support and other advanced features.
Aside from using DOS 1.x, the initial Portables are similar to the 16 KB – 64 KB models of the IBM PC in that the BIOS was limited to 544 KB of RAM and did not support expansion ROMs, thus making them unable to use EGA/VGA cards, hard disks, or similar hardware. After DOS 2.x and the
In 1985, Compaq introduced the Portable 286, but it was replaced by the more compact Portable II in a redesigned case within a few months. The Portable 286 featured a full height hard disk, and the options of one half-height floppy drive, two half-height floppy drives, or a half-height floppy drive and a tape backup drive.
Reception
Successors
Upgrades of Compaq Portable
Compaq Portable Plus
Released in 1983 upgraded version; The Compaq Portable Plus simply had a
Compaq Portable 286
The Compaq Portable 286, Compaq's version of the
Compaq Portable series
The Compaq Portable machine was the first of a
and Compaq Portable 486c were later in the series.References
- ^ "History of the Microprocessor and the Personal Computer, Part 3". TechSpot. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
- ^ Aboard the Columbia, By Bill Machrone, Page 451, June 1983, PC Mag
- ISBN 0-919493-16-5pp. 172-179
- ^ Pournelle, Jerry (September 1983). "Eagles, Text Editors, New Compilers, and Much More". BYTE. p. 307. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
- ^ "Corona advertisement", InfoWorld, p. 50, July 18, 1983, retrieved 14 May 2021
- ISSN 0362-4331.
- ^ Hardware:Review:Seequa Chameleon, By Russ Adams, Page 132, 28 November 1983, InfoWorld
- ^ The Chameleon mystery, By David Needle, Page 5, 31 January 1983, InfoWorld
- ^ Review Responses: Seequa, By John Schaefer, Page 66, 30 January 1984, InfoWorld
- ^ "Compaq Commodore 64". www.vintage-computer.com. Archived from the original on 3 July 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
- ^ a b c "Compaq I Portable computer". www.oldcomputers.net. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
- ^ a b c Dahmke, Mark (January 1983). "The Compaq Portable". BYTE. pp. 30–36. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
- ^ Rosenberg, Ronald (1984-02-28). "Doubts Raised About PCjr". The Boston Globe.
- ^ Alsop, Stewart (1994-01-31). "A public Windows pane to make compatibility clearer". InfoWorld. p. 102. Retrieved February 28, 2011.
- ^ Sandler, Corey (June 1983). "Compaq: Have Computer Will Travel". PC Magazine. p. 186. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
- ^ "Compaq Plus Portable - Computer - Computing History". www.computinghistory.org.uk. Retrieved 2021-10-08.
- ^ Inc, InfoWorld Media Group (1986-04-21). InfoWorld. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.
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