I used to sell this (or at least try!).... I want it....

"The whole shebang is powered - if that's the word - by a 4.77MHz Intel 8088 processor backed up with 256KB of memory...."

...and I bet it's STILL more productive than a multi-GHz Multi-GB Windows-"powered" (I use the term loosely) machine of today!

an APL to BASIC converter like the 5100?

<< Mines the one above the C-204 time displacement device

It belongs in my collection, together with the Osborne 1, KayPro 10, Commodore SX-64, and Epson HX-20.

Except...

I already have a mortgage on my apartment(two actually), so can't afford the shipping cost...

Any vultures out there who's headed for Norway and could take it as carry-on for me?

I had a very similar Phillips machine. I think it had a massive 128Mb RAM, but no c:\ drive. Hooked up to a daisywheel printer it got me going as a self-employed consultant back in 1991 using CalcStar and WordStar.

It's portability probably caused the dropped shoulder I still have today!

We had one of these babies lying around in the PC shop I used to work at... Because of the weight it was dubbed The Herniator

I very nearly sold it to an obnoxious customer that wanted 'a simple portable computer; doesn't have to be powerful'

Well, it fulfilled the second criterion at least...

.. with no vista driver support... when will M$ sort themselves out :)

4.77MHz Intel 8088 ?

What a luxury that would have been at the time. It's a mistake commonly made by youths of today, but back in the eighties desktop CPUs ran in the Kilohertz range. This box'll have a 4.77 KHz processor.

Upwards of four Megahertz wasn't reached until the early nineties.

...Macbook Air feature comparison chart, as per the Commodore SX-64 feature a few days back? I think this should be compulsory for all items on elderly portable computers...

"Upwards of four Megahertz wasn't reached until the early nineties."

No John, no.

First Google hit, to prove it:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/cpu/fam/g1I8088-c.html

Although I suspect Inspector_Morse may have had 128k RAM, not 128Mb.

incorrectimundo, sir. The 8088 was most certainly 4.77MHz

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.htm#i486

Direct from the horse's mouth (tenth entry from the top).

If you read that list you'll find that you have to go all the way back to the 8008 processor to drop below 1MHz speed.

Did you sniff the magic blue smoke pouring out of an waaaay overclocked P4?

he first IBM PCs ran at 4.77MHz because that was a cheap Xtal.

The C64 ran at 1 or 2MHz(depending on modus), the Sinclair ZX Spectrum at an blistering 3.5MHz(or was it 4MHz)

The slowest computer I have from that time is probably the Epson HX-20 which had TWO 6301 8bit CPUs clocked at .9MHz

Or was that an attempt at a joke?

No, the clock frequency of it really is 4.77 MHz. I know. I have one, err, two of them (Hush! Don't tell anyone I said that!). At least I didn't pay full price for them (I got them at a "fire" sale.). The motherboard was the same as used in the IBM PC/XT. They didn't come (at least, not factory stock) with an APL interpreter, although I seem to remember that there was an APL program option, which came with a set of keyboard stick-ons, and required the numeric co-processor (8087). The early models only had a single floppy drive, but that was quickly changed to a dual floppy drive model. There never was a hard disk option, although many people wedged a suitable hard disk into one (And, with hard disks of that era, you'd better make sure you had "parked" the heads, before you tried to lug that monster around.). Many also connected an expansion unit, although that wasn't officially supported. Also, the 640K on the motherboard trick wasn't officially supported, but quite a few people did perform the hack to allow it (If I remember correctly, it either required connecting a jumper on the motherboard or changing out one of the address decoding chips.).

For extra points, how many of y'all remember the NEC V-20 processor chip replacement/upgrade?

Why do I suddenly feel so old? :-( Well, at least I didn't mention core memory, or vacuum tube computers. :-(

Dave

4.77MHz of rubbish. Damn you IBM for not using the vastly superior Motorola 68K thereby consigning software to years of farting around with segment registers.

Where would we be now, I wonder?

Yeah, I remember selling these IBM units, back in the day. IIRC the IBM Portable came out a little after the Compaq Portable shipped. I had some customers who were IBM-only shops, they lusted for the Compaq but couldn't get authorization to buy one. So when this IBM shipped, we sold a few.. but only a rare few.

One of the problems with this unit was the floppies, most dealerships wanted to do the normal "buildup" process, so they'd buy the base units with 1 floppy drive, expecting to add a generic second drive. But those persnickety IBM-only customers often objected when we'd ship them a built-up machine with an added second floppy disk drive, but without the IBM logo on the 2nd drive bezel.

These Compaq and IBM portables were never designed to have hard drives installed, they were dual-floppy units at best. But a lot of the massive size of the machines was for card slots, which nobody really used. Then some smart guy had an idea for a "Hard Card," a hard drive and controller on one card, just pop it in and you've got an IBM XT equivalent. Oh man I sold tons of those Hard Cards. Anyway, I suspect this IBM portable might have this type of add-in, as there really isn't any other way that I know of to put a hard drive in this CPU.

I think you're horribly confused. Even the 8 bits of the day ran in the MHz range

The C64's 6510 CPU being clocked at around 1MHz and I seem to remember the ZX Spectrum+ Z80 chip running around 8MHz?

Geek card firmly on display :)

That wasn't a Philips P2000C by any chance? CP/M machine?

...my old Columbia Data Products VP. Wonder if it weighs as much.

This was my college computer. Mine has dual floppies, the 8087 coprocessor and 512M memory! It was a nice box for word-processing with WordPerfect and was great to do my intro-programming on with Turbo-Pascal. While the hard-drive cards were popular, it was possible to mount a half-height hard-drive if you could find a short ISA controller.

It had a better graphics card than the XT as the mono-display could do 4-level grayscale!

I could log into the campus network using my exciting 300baud modem and do work on the VAX or the Cyber!

The 5100 was the first attempt at a "personal-conputer" by IBM. It had an IBM designed processor running at 1G and had that nifty APL/Basic switch. It was the computer I first ran a computer-game on - lunar-lander - ca 1976.

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc/pc_2.html

I fondly remember the NEC V-20, I had to replace the motherboard in my 5155 (cracked, so much for portability!) and I gave it the V-20 when I did so. 10Mhz - DOUBLE the speed of the original system!

I also had a hard drive ON this system (note I didn't say "IN") - couldn't fit it in the case, so I had it sitting outside on top of the box (even then, duct tape was a fine tool for system mods). At one point I'd switched out one of the 5.25" floppy's for a 3.5", and I had a fine hand-made cable to link the serial port with my roommate's Mac so we could trade files (made up the Mac end with an artists eraser and a bunch of sewing needles because we figure out where to buy the connector cheaply).

Love Hertz -

I think you'll find that Intel produced the 8088 process in the following clock speeds.

1978: 8086-8088 Microprocessor

A pivotal sale to IBM's new personal computer division made the 8088 the brains of IBM's new hit

product--the IBM* PC. The 8088's success propelled Intel into the ranks of the Fortune* 500, and

Fortune magazine named the company one of the "Business Triumphs of the Seventies."

Number of Transistors: 29,000

Speed: 5MHz, 8MHz, 10MHz

excerpt taken from http://mysearch.intel.com/corporate/default.aspx?culture=en-US&q=8088&searchsubmit.x=15&searchsubmit.y=8

Alas has suffered from the digg effect as it has become an invalid item link !

Many fond memories of the $200 taxi ride home from Sydney to the Blue Mountains as we were not allowed to take the damned thing on the train.

Ah the fond memories trying to dial in to the mainframe, squinting at the screen, trying to debug production JCL & PL/1 code gone bad at 2am.

It WAS a huge improvment on jumping in the car & driving 2 hours to work (& once there just stayed as there was no point going home again as you would have had to have left before you got there).

Let's all drink to a guy that figured out they should put the screen on the top of the lid, not squeezed in next to the hinge (see photo)

Removed because it mentioned the word Mac... While I agree with their policy in principle, it was hardly trying to pass it's self off as a Mac... Anyone interested, it's been relisted here http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IBM-5155-Portable-Vintage-Computer_W0QQitemZ160202646582QQihZ006QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem