It was still no lightweight, tipping the scale at 20 lb.

The first of these was the 1987 Portable III, which has a 640 x 400 resolution amber gas-plasma display in a case that resembled a lunch box more than anything else. The LunchboxesĪs flat panel display technology marched forward, Compaq was able to develop a much smaller, lighter computer. The Portable II shipped with MS-DOS 3.1 and supported up to 640 KB on its system board. The new model weighed only 23.6 lb., almost 5 pounds lighter than the original Portable. There were four ISA expansion slots – two 8-bit and two 16-bit slots (one 8-bit and one 16-bit slot were already in use when you bought the computer). The Portable shipped with Compaq DOS 1.13, which was essentially the same as IBM PC-DOS 1.1.Ĭompaq refreshed its design with the Portable II, an 80286-based AT class machine running at 6 or 8 MHz. Its BIOS had been reverse engineered, and it was compatible with almost all IBM PC software.

with its 9″ CGA display, two floppy drives, and expansion slots. The Compaq Portable was the first transportable IBM compatible, weighing in at 28 lb. It was against this backdrop that Compaq entered the market in 1983. The serial port accommodated a 300 bps or 1200 bps external modem.Ĭompetitors soon arose, including the metal-clad Kaypro II (1981) with a 9″ display – much larger than the original Osborne 1 – and there was even a hard drive version. Osborne in the field was a strong arm, a sturdy work surface, and an AC outlet. The Osborne 1 was a runaway success, selling 11,000 units in its first 8 months on the market and peaking at 10,000 units per month. It ran CP/M 2.2, which was the standard in the business world, and retailed for $1,800 with $1,500 worth of bundled software – Wordstar, SuperCalc, dBase II, Microsoft MBasic, Digital Research CBASIC2, three ledger program from PeachTree Software, and a couple games. The first was the Osborne 1 (1981), built around a 4 MHz Zilog Z80 processor, two floppy drives, and a 5″ CRT display. This is Compaq’s story.Įven before IBM entered the personal computer market, there were “portable” computers – about the size of a suitcase, very heavy, but at least they were transportable. However, IBM didn’t address portability, which created an opening for Compaq and Toshiba to enter the PC market. When IBM introduced its first PC in August 1981, it created a new standard for desktop computers in the business world.

Compaq slt 286