VOGONS


First post, by perezx

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Life is strange...
Instead of working on USIT Athena I just acquired one more "patient".
It's the perfect example of second generation laptops, which shaped this class of machines almost to a modern form, at least as far as we speak about form-factor.
Well, actually these were first really "massmarket" machines if we only can say this about a machine which costed $4185 in 1991 (more than $9000 in today's prices).

This is a light (lightest if we trust PC Magazine'91 review) and small machine, which has 386sx20 CPU, 2 Mb of RAM and 42 Mb HDD (at least mine has such disk).
Screen is 215mm (8,5 inch), b/w (32 grades by spec), VERY laggy although produces clear and very useful image. Definitely this in neither graphics nor gaming laptop. External dislpay is not supported. Communications include Fax/Modem (in optional bay), external FDD, LPT and COM-9 - thats it!
Of course, you can run WIn3.11 (and it was installed on this machine), but 2 Mb RAM is way too low. So, this on is, perhaps, a pure-DOS machine for rich journalists (keyboard is just perfect!), programmers/developers etc.
Interesting that RAM is installed via full-size 72-pin SIMM: 72-pin in 1991! and 72-pin for 386SX as well!

Reply 1 of 5, by perezx

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Hmm, some pages from abovementioned PC Mag

Reply 3 of 5, by pentiumspeed

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PS/2 model 55SX and 70 in 1987 was first use of 72pin SIMMs. Rest of them used 30pin including model 60. All 80 towers used proprietary memory cards.

Second generation PS/2's 50Z, later Models 70 including A (25MHz), tower 65 (SX) started to use 72 pins SIMMs more. Some fewer models kept using 30 pins (low end) primarily in 25 and 30, Tower 80 kept using memory cards. After that, mid 90's with PS/2, most of them had moved on to 72 pin SIMMs.

IBM is most least used of 30pin SIMMs. XT 286, 25, 30 also 30 286 and model 50 and 60. 30 pin SIMMs had short period. Between these, so many computers with DIP chip memory and later on in PS/2 used to use 72 pin SIMMs more often.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 4 of 5, by perezx

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Sure, it was a good idea to put some kind of standard module and thus open the way for upgrade. However, the machine itself only supports 4 Mb.
And it's just overkill to put 72-pin when you have 16-bit data bus 😀

Reply 5 of 5, by perezx

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An external diskette drive with proprietary connector was also supplied with the machine, but required some repair. After replacing old and weak driving belt I managed to link 33-years-old laptop to a modern world 😀
Sure, other link option will be dialup modem.

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