Saturday, July 10, 2010

Retrotech in the House: Compaq

I am the proud owner of a Compaq Portable Computer. This "portable" was released by Compaq in 1982. It is a nearly completely compatible IBM clone. I purchased it from my son several years after he had moved on to higher technology. He needed the money to purchase a piece of equipment to aid him in the care of his horses. And he no longer need the computer. Neither did I.

I still have this lovely item, which at one time was coupled to an Epson dot-matrix printer, which I also still have. My closets, barns, and even the rooms in which we live, are filled with ancient, nay, even nearly-extinct stuff.

The Compaq processor is Intel 8088 operating at 4.77MHz. RAM 128K, up to 640K; ROM approximately 12K. MS-DOS. Storage via 5.25 floppy drive, 360K. 320x200x16 color monitor!
It came with a padded carrying case, which we use to this day for transporting the spouse's karaoke machine. Nice looking item, too.

This computer sold at three grand and northward and Compaq produced 100,000 of them.

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