jeff@eng.umd.edu (Jeffrey Frey) (12/01/90)
The Data General One was a pioneering laptop--years ahead of its time, which was 1985. It was an 8088 machine with 1 or 2 3.5" 720K floppy drives (this before the PS/2) and a non-backlit LCD screen which was quite large, but had only a 3:1 contrast ratio. Later DG/1s had non-backlit supertwist LCD screens and 10 or 20MB hard drives. All original DG/1s could handle up to 512K of internal memory (on internal plug-in cards), had two serial ports, built-in rechargeable batteries, and no carrying handle. The form factor was quite convenient and the machine was relatively light (11 pounds?) I've had mine I've had mine since 1985 and still use it occasionally, although I've had mine since 1985 and still use it occasionally, although my PC Convertible gets more use now because of its backlit screen and plugged-in hard drive. I never had any trouble with the DG/1 except dirty contacts on the memory cards once (it failed its start-up check as a symptom) and its internal day/date battery failed. The 8088 was a 4.77MHz unit. DG later replaced the 1 with a 1/2T, which had a backlit LCD screen and more memory capacity. One problem with the original 1 was also corrected in the 2T: the BIOS ROM was made fully IBM-compatible. Something about the screen driver was not fully compatible in the original screen driver wasn't fully compatible in the original DG/1, resulting in some software incompatibility. The DG1/2T in its final 2-floppy version was probably comparable to today's Sharp MZ-100, roughly, and that machine can be had for about $600. new. The DG/1 is more elegant, however, Jeff