FWIW: Data General One Laptop spotted for sale

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Thu Mar 26 03:31:51 1998

On Wed, 25 Mar 1998, David Mather wrote:

> Well - it wasn't non-descript at the time! It had a full-size (80x25) LCD
> display and WAS the first >truly< portable PC compatible - depending what
> you meant by truly of course. Compaq and Olivetti (and Zenith?)
> had luggable things compared to which the DG1 was extremely
> elegant, especially with the rather smart beige/brown DG trim. At the
> time it had "buy me" written all over it.

Both HP and GRiD had similar >truly< portable PC's out before the DG/One.
The HP 110 was battery-powered, so the DG/One doesn't even get the earlier
distinction I gave it of being the first battery-powered clamshell.
However, neither the GRiD nor the HP were 100% IBM compatible, so the
DG/One may be the winner there.

Here's a NEWSBYTE's blurb from the DG/One's intro:

BIG SCREEN PORTABLE:

   1984 September 25 (NB) -- Data General unveiled its first
   microcomputer to a Lincoln Center, New York audience (9/20). The major
   selling point to the 10-pound portable machine, dubbed the Data
   General/One, is its liquid crystal display. The LCD is the size of a
   standard monitor, displaying 25 lines of text at a time across 12
   diagonal inches of monitor space. The second selling point is its
   ability to run a variety of operating systems: MS-DOS, UNIX and CP/M.
   The basic system, with 128K of RAM, has one disk drive but no built-in
   software, making it different from the competing HP Portable. The
   machine, with a traditionally power draining built-in drive, actually
   runs 8 hours without recharging, according to Data General. Still to
   be determined is how the mainframe computer company will retail the
   new $2,895 machine and its $525 tiny printer. Data General only has
   200 U.S. distributors but has financed the portable computers in
   advance for new retailers. A D.G. spokesman says there will be several
   major computer store chains carrying the machine by the middle of
   1985. One thing in the company's favor: it beat IBM to the punch.
   IBM's portable machine code-named "Clamshell" isn't going to be
   unveiled until 1985.

-- Doug
Received on Thu Mar 26 1998 - 03:31:51 GMT