[inforoots] laptops

[George Trimble]

I have a Radio Shack PC 100 Portable Computer that I bought sometime in the early1980s. There were "luggable" computers around but I wouldn't consider anything that heavy as portable. In fact, anything over 6 pounds was out as far as I was concerned. At 3lb. 13oz. it was great to carry.

Some might reject it saying it did not have enough features to be classified as a computer. It had a display of 8 lines of 40 characters each with up to 32k of memory ( 64 when a second bank of memory was added.) But it worked very well and solved many problems within it's limitations. It has a built in modem and did connect to external peripherals (that added to it's weight.) It has no wheels, does not require a special carrying case. It has a simple BASIC interpreter, a text editor, an address book application and scheduler application built in.

It was a high volume portable, probably in the thousands, compared to other so called "portables" of the time which attested to it's popularity. I worked on a "News Desk" system for Time Magazine, Inc. that had a STRATUS computer for filing stories submitted by reporters and "stringers" (part time reporters) all over the world who used the PC 100 to collect and transmit their stories to the STRATUS.

The following web site has some more info on the PC 100

http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/complab.htm
The Radio Shack Model I was the first mass-marketed personal computer that I used. I used to hang out in the local Radio Shack store and play with the Model I. I think that it was the 4k/Level I Basic model with the expansion interface. I have one of these, plus a 16k/Level II Basic model. An interesting fact is that the Level I Basic is not Microsoft's. If I remember correctly, Microsoft was unable to deliver a version of Basic in time for the Model I launch, so the R/S engineers created a version of Basic based on Li-Chen Wang's Palo Alto Tiny Basic, adding several commands to the standard. The Level II Basic, introduced later, was a Microsoft product.

The other Radio Shack system that I love is the Model 100 portable. Based on the 8085 processor, it was one of the first "notebook" computers (I think that the Epson HX-20 was the first). At less than 4 lbs., it was a favorite of traveling authors and news reporters who transmitted their articles from the field at a blazing 300 baud. I have a complete M102 system, including the Disk-Video Interface. This is also the last product that Bill Gates actively coded on, working on the menu system and the BASIC interpreter.

Copyright (c) 1998-2005 Richard A. Cini, Jr. 
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