DEC and Apricots

From: adam_at_merlin.net.au <(adam_at_merlin.net.au)>
Date: Sun Jan 25 21:52:48 1998

>>2) I heard of a machine called the Apricot, which came in a portable
>>model w/voice recognition, and several desktop ones. It seems they
>>were all Intel-based. Could someone tell me if they were really good
>>as far as the GUI and voice recognition and everything else, or just
>>commercial junk? How much would these machines go for?

>The GUI was quite primitive compared to say a Mac of the same era. Mine are
>all monochrome, don't know if there was a color version. Hadn't heard of the
>voice recognition before.

I've never used one myself, so I can't comment on the GUI. However the
portable Apricot did indeed have voice recognition. It was a nice box -
a very attractive V-shaped design (to put the monitor at a good angle),
light keyboard, and voice recognition. It was also black, which is a
fine thing. However, it was a membrane keyboard similar to the Sinclair
QL, the voice recog was not very good, suffered from an awful microphone
(apparantly you had to almost literally swallow it before it could pick
up anything), and the neat V-shape meant that you could not adjust the
monitor angle - which was not good at all, as it was one of those early
LCD sorts where than angle had to be perfect. It did run MS-DOS, but
wasn't 100% compat. My faviourite touch, though, was that if you
included an external monitor, the LCD one could be used independently -
much like on the Mac Powerbooks.

If anyone knows where I can get one please let me know - it's near the
top of my wish list.

Adam.
Received on Sun Jan 25 1998 - 21:52:48 GMT