IBM 5100 (was Re: Preserving history. Was: Re: IBM 1130)

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Tue Sep 29 16:58:24 1998

Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com> wrote:
> My IBM 5100 came with some of the term sheets used to make the original
> sale:
> IBM 5100 Model C2 (APL+BASIC+32K): $16,490

IBM bragged about the fact that the single-langauge 16K version had a
list price of under $10K. That is comparable to the HP 9830, which only
had basic, and had 4K of RAM (expandable to 8K). Of course, the HP 9830
was introduced three years earlier.

In 1976, less than a year after the IBM 5100 was introducted, HP replaced
the 9830 with the much more powerful 9835. However, the 9835B with CRT
display was physically larger and less portable than the IBM 5100.

The 9835A was reasonably portable but had only a single-line LED display
(like the 9830), rather than the small integral CRT of the IBM.

Eric
Received on Tue Sep 29 1998 - 16:58:24 BST