robertj@tekgen.bv.tek.com (Robert Jaquiss) (05/13/91)
Index Number: 15532
Mitsuba Ninja: Big Punch in a Little Box
by Larry Skutchan
I've wanted a small, portable computer for a long time now. I've
known what kind of machine I wanted, but haven't had much luck
finding it for a reasonable price. The ideal machine had to have
the following characteristics:
MS-DOS compatible
at least AT compatible (with a 286 or 386 processor)
several megabytes of RAM with the option to expand
hard disk
high density 3.5 floppy drive
serial and parallel ports
built-in modem
comfortable keyboard with separate editing keys, all function keys,
and the ability to access a numeric keypad
reasonable battery life
audible battery warning
ability to change batteries without stopping the machine
priced less than $2500
Looking at this list, you might say, "You'll never find anything
like that, and if you do, it will cost a fortune." That's what I
thought, too. I began lowering my expectations when I saw some of
the LapTop computers others use. The Toshiba 1600 was beginning to
look better and better, even at its $3000 price tag. I still
wasn't happy with its size and weight though. I wanted something
convenient to carry and the Toshiba was just too big and heavey.
A friend told me about the Mitsuba Ninja note book computer from
Mitsuba Corporation, so I requested some information on the
machine. It sounded like what I was after, but it is difficult to
tell without actually getting your hands on one. It is tough, in
fact, to make a good judgement about any high-tech product without
actually using it for a while. After months of intensive hunting,
dreaming, and buttering up my wife, I finally dug up the $2150 for
one.
When the Ninja arrived, I was surprised at the size. It is truly
no larger than a note book. (When my wife came home from work that
evening, she asked if the machine had arrived. I told her it was
on the table in the living room. "That little thing?" she
exclaimed, "I thought that was a modem or something."
The unit weighs 6.5 pounds and is something you can comfortably
carry in a briefcase or backpack. It is small enough, in fact, to
comfortably carry in your hand. As with most note book computers,
the screen folds down over the keyboard for transporting. To use
the machine, you release the screen to expose the keyboard, and
flip on the power switch.
My first pleasant surprise about the Ninja was the keyboard's
touch. The next was the keyboard's arrangement. It is configured
in the standard qwerty layout with a space bar only about 3 inches
long. Left of the space bar is the backslash key, a position I've
quickly learned to enjoy. A special key called FN is left of
backslash. (More about FN shortly.) Left of FN is the Alt key,
and left of that, at the unit's bottom left hand corner is the
control key. It takes a little getting used to having alt that far
over to the left, but it is possible. I think I'd have preferred
switching the positions of FN and alt, but that, unfortunately,
isn't an option. The remainder of the left side of the keyboard is
standard with the 101 enhanced keyboard layout with shift, control,
caps lock, tab, and escape along the left side. The right bottom
corner is a bit different. The key on the machines bottom right
edge is the right arrow editing key. To its left is the down
arrow. Immediately above that is the up arrow. (It lies between
the "/" and the right shift key which makes the right shift over
just a bit farther than you'd like.) There is no control key on
the right side of the keyboard which, when I first noticed, I
realized that I rarely ever use the right control key on my regular
keyboard. Left of down arrow is left arrow. Left of that is
delete, then insert. The space is left of insert. That FN key
mentioned a minute ago is used to get the rest of the editing keys
from the arrows. Holding down FN with left arrow gives you the
home key. FN+right arrow gives you the end key. FN+up arrow and
down arrow gives you page up and page down respectively. The Enter
key is a full-sized, bent arrow-shaped. The backspace key is in
the normal place and is the normal, larger than the rest of the
keys size. Above backspace, on the top right-hand corner, is the
pause/break key. Left of that is print screen, scroll lock, num
lock, and finally, the f12 key. The rest of the function keys take
up the remainder of the top row with escape at the upper left.
Unfortunately, there's no spaces between groups of the function
keys, but I've found that a natural reach of the right index finger
reaches f8. The left index finger easily reaches f4. From there
it isn't too bad to count to where you need to be.
That FN key, in addition to the functions already described, turns
several of the alpha-numeric keys into a numeric keypad in the
middle of the keyboard. You can also press the FN and num lock to
lock down that keypad for lots of number entry. While you hold
down FN, the j, k, and l turn into 1, 2, and 3. U, I, and O turn
into 4, 5, and 6, etc. The FN key is also used in combination with
some of the other keys to control features of the machine. FN+1,
for instance, increases the screen's contrast while FN+2 decreases
it. The 3 and 4 are also used with FN to increase and decrease the
brightness of the screen. FN+f7 slows down the processor to 6 mhz,
giving you a beep to confirm your action, and FN+f8 switches back
to 12 mhz with a double beep tone to confirm your action. Pressing
FN+f10 is my favorite key combination. That selects an external
monitor and shuts down the built-in screen. No, I don't use the
unit with an external screen; I'm blind and can't stand wasting
battery power on lighting a screen I don't use. (This squeezes
about an extra hour out of the battery, bringing the total on a
battery to 4 hours.) Pressing FN+f10 a second time, by the way,
turns the LCD screen back on. There are also several other FN key
combinations used to control what kind of display the Ninja
emulates. I've set mine up with VGA in the setup program, and
leave it there. A final key of note deserves mention. It is the
standby key, and is a long bar located away from the rest of the
keyboard at the upper right edge of the unit. When the standby
switch is pressed, the hard disk shuts down, the screen lighting
turns off, and the processor slows down to 0.125 mhz. I'm not too
sure how long the unit runs in this mode, but I do know that
standby switch is handy for making that hard disk shut down as soon
as you're through using it. I don't know if this saves much power
or not, but it makes me feel better to not have it running.
The Ninja's screen is described in the manual as a back lit, paper
white LCD with 640X480 resolution. It can emulate MGA, CGA, EGA,
VGA, and the Hercules graphics adaptor with all it's features.
Again, I'm blind, so I can't comment on how it compares to other
units. I can say that my wife claims it is just as good as many
regular monitors she's seen. Two or three people can easily read
the display at one time. I also read about some pioneering
breakthroughs made by Mitsuba along the display lines in the
February 1990 issue of Byte. That piece in Byte, by the way,
listed the price at $3500. Naturally, I'm delighted about the
price reduction.
Along the unit's right edge is a door that releases to expose two
mini-ports designed for a mouse and keyboard. They are the same
plugs used in the PS/2 series of computers from IBM. In front of
that, at the closest edge to you, is the 3.5 1.44 mb disk drive.
On the left side is another door. It contains the connector for an
external monitor (15 pin female) and, if you have the 2400 bps
modem option, two phone jacks. Behind that, on the machine's left
rear corner is the battery compartment. The rear edge contains two
doors. The door on the left opens to expose a bus expansion slot
that can be connected to the optional expansion box to provide two
extra 16 bit slots. The door on the right side of the rear panel
opens to reveal a 9 pin serial port, a parallel port, and a port
for connecting an external disk drive.
The processor in the Ninja is the 8C286 with speeds of 12.5 mhz and
a power-saving 6 mhz that is selectable either from the built-in
setup program or from a key combination on the keyboard. The
processor also runs at 0.125 mhz in the unit's standby mode which
will be described below.
The Ninja comes standard with 1 mb of RAM. It can be expanded to
8 megabytes. The unit I configured has 2 megabytes.
There is a socket in the machine for a math co-processor, but I did
not include this option in my configuration.
The hard disk is relatively quick with an access time of 23 ms. It
has a 20 mb capacity, but is available in a 40 mb configuration as
well. When operating with battery power, the hard disk shuts down
automatically after a preset time. You set the time before
shutting down in the setup program. I've also discovered that you
don't have to let it run for the full minute (the minimum shut down
time) by pressing the standby switch after using the hard disk.
The hard disk comes back on automatically when it is needed, but it
can take nearly a second before it gets up to speed. This little
annoyance has caused me to turn off WordPerfect's auto-backup
feature.
A critical component of any portable computer is the power
management system. The Ninja's seems relatively complex and
comprehensive. The setup program lets you configure the power-
saving features by letting you specify the amount of time after no
activity certain components will shut down. I've set the screen
and hard disk to shut down after 1 minute. You can also select 2
minutes, 3 minutes, or disable the automatic shutdown feature. If
you're using the machine with AC power, the components don't shut
down. In addition to these latency times, you can optionally
remove power from the serial port, modem port, or disk drive if you
know you won't be using them. There is also a standby switch that,
when pressed, shuts down the machine by turning off power to all
components and slowing the processor down to 0.125 mhz. Pressing
the button again brings the machine back right where you left it.
When the battery gets down to about 20 minutes of useful like, the
battery light flashes and the unit makes a double beep every
fifteen seconds. When the time gets down to five minutes of life,
the unit beeps every five seconds. You can remove the battery
without powering down and replace it with a fresh one. (The unit
contains a second battery that gives it 20 minutes of life while
you change the battery. When you put in the new battery, the first
thing that happens is that the second, internal battery gets
recharged from the battery you just replaced, so it is ready to
hold you over for the next battery change.)
The Ninja's manual was clear, concise, and presented in a logical
fashion. It began with an inspection of the unit, a tour, and a
description of the inside. It went on to explain the features
available and presented helpful tips for novices to computers. I
could have stood more in depth explanations of power-saving
techniques.
In nearly every category, I'm extremely pleased with the Ninja's
price, performance, and size. I would, of course, prefer to get
more battery life, but from what I've been able to tell, three
hours from a single battery with the ability to replace the battery
without shutting down the machine is respectable. I am especially
pleased with the feel and layout of the keyboard. I have no
complaints about the performance except for the slight lag in
getting the hard disk back up to speed after a shutdown. I haven't
had the unit long enough to report on reliability, but if it is
anything like other Mitsuba computers I own, there will be no
problem there. There is an optional service contract available
which supposedly covers the cost of having a house call to repair
the machine if needed. Not being a believer in extra service
contracts, I can't comment on this.
I'm using the Ninja with ASAP and Laptalk. (See the announcement
about Laptalk elsewhere in this issue.) The combination works very
well together. ASAP's heavy use of the numeric keypad proves quite
convenient with the numeric keypad layout on this machine. There
are also all the features available without using the numeric
keypad from ASAP if you prefer it that way. It would definitely be
more convenient if the speech were built-in, but I don't think the
burden of the extra speech box is worth fretting about. (I'm also
not sure you could get a synthesizer to fit inside this thing.)
The size and weight of LapTalk and the Ninja is far less than using
a normal LapTop computer with a speech synthesizer built in. The
only disadvantage, small as it is, is that you have two items to
carry instead of one. Again, though, those two items are smaller
and lighter than the one. I actually leave the synthesizer
perminately connected even when transporting the unit. When I'm in
meetings, I leave the synthesizer in the brief case and use a
headphone with it. Roger uses his with a unique headphone
arrangement available from Radio Shack. It is an infrered
headphone connection. This, obviously, eliminates the cable
between the LapTalk and you. One requirement about this setup is
that you must have a line-of-sight path to allow the infrered
signals from the LapTalk to the headphones work.
--the end--