Fwd: compaq's portable computer

From: Dr. Ido <dr.ido_at_bigpond.net.au>
Date: Tue May 4 04:34:17 2004

At 10:08 AM 5/3/04 -0400, you wrote:
> You forgot to attach her message and/or address.
>
> AFIK there were no options for the original Portable. I've had several
>and read the manuals and I don't remember hearing of any options. But it's
>been a long time and I could be wrong. I think somewhere I still have an
>original brochure and some manuals but don't ask me to find them. I can't
>find half the stuff that I thought I knew where it was.
>
> IIRC they were 256k, 8088 CPU and dual DS disk drives and that was it.
>The Portable II was 40% smaller and lighter and had 640k of RAM. I think a
>hard drive was available in the P-II but I don't know if that was from the
>factory or a third party job.
>
> Joe

The Portable II is a 286 (8MHz from memory). I had a couple once, both had
factory fitted 20MB HDDs. The HDDs were Miniscribe 8425s. A 3.5" MFM
drive mounted on rubber in a bracket that would almost fill a full height
5.25" drive bay. In both the machines a WD (with a Compaq sticker) MFM to
IDE adapter was used to run it off the IDE port on the original Compaq I/O
card. Both of mine had Compaq CGA cards in them, but they did better than
CGA text. I think EGA was available later. I had a Deskpro 386 with a
Compaq EGA card. The EGA card has an internal video connector that matched
the Portable II's monitor connector. I never tried this out, I sold the
deskpro before I got the Portable IIs.

I had a Portable I. It had 256KB on the motherboard, but could be expanded
to 640KB with an ISA memory card like (almost) any other XT. From memory
there was a Portable Plus, a Portable I with a 10MB HDD.

I've still got a Portable 486, I think that was the last of the luggables.
It looks like a smaller version of the Portable III case, but with an LCD
display rather than plasma. 486DX2-66, 16MB RAM,500MB SCSI HDD, 2 ISA
slots, mains powers only. Definitely not a laptop, would be a nice little
machine (well, as nice as a 486 luggable gets anyway) if the display worked
properly.
Received on Tue May 04 2004 - 04:34:17 BST