Comments on: Byte Reviews the Compaq - First PC Clone

By: vasu

vasu — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:45:02 +0000

i want hard ware notes for ;learning something about tuter

By: David Byrden

David Byrden — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:14:41 +0000

I recall trying to carry one of those for 500 yards in 1986 (in Ireland). I’m not a weak man, but before long I genuinely thought I would injure my arms.

By: Alterscape

Alterscape — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:01:47 +0000

Wow, this brings the nostalgia. I was in preschool when my father’s company first loaned him one of these boxen (to what end, I forget). I remember mainly learning just enough DOS commands to launch the little side-scrolling dogfight game he got from some friend or other — cd \ ; cd games; cd fighter; fighter. Apparently at four, I didn’t realize you could string paths together with suitable slashes. Thanks for the interesting story!

By: creatorswhim

creatorswhim — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:31:57 +0000

I have one of these in the spare room. Still boots, and if I could find another 5 1/4″ drive, I could put software on it. (I have a box of the disks already) It would be ideal to install an assembler and fool around with writing some programs for it. (Then again, I could do that in DosBox.)

It’s a pretty nice machine, considering its age.

By: rebrad

rebrad — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:47:58 +0000

I had one of these back in the day. We called them luggables. I used to lug this around airports worldwide and after a couple of trips you not only built up your arm muscles you developed a bad back. They did work and were revolutionary because you could take your computer where you needed it.

By: Blurgle

Blurgle — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:32:27 +0000

I don’t know about frogger, but there used to be a game called Classic Star Trek that could be played on a Compaq.

The Compaq really was portable. Then again, so is a load of bricks, if you own a wheelbarrow.

By: Githyanki

Githyanki — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:19:59 +0000

Where are the gaming benchmarks? Wasn’t frogger playable on one of these?

By: Casandro

Casandro — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:04:04 +0000

Wow, that is an actual review about a computer. They even opened it up.

There is a rumour from about that time that some software checked for the string IBM in a part of the BIOS ROM. Of course Compaq couldn’t just write IBM in there. So they used the german word SCHREIBMASCHINE (typewriter) there to fool those software packages.