IBM
A Rare CP/M Laptop | The MicroOffice RoadRunner
A Rare CP/M Laptop | The MicroOffice RoadRunner
#Rare #CPM #Laptop #MicroOffice #RoadRunner
“Tech Time Traveller”
The MicroOffice Roadrunner was one of the first ‘clamshell’ style laptops on offer in the early 1980s, and one of the few running a …
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05:41 – Remember folks: beware of volatile RAM.
the cartridges were a mistake they should have used tapes or some other magnetic storage
My first laptop was a Toshiba T1100. I barely used it. The only old portable I still keep is a Commodore SX-64. I absolutely love it.
A "vertically limited" LCD isn't so bad when your usage consists of word processing and spreadsheets. It's even okay for text adventures.
For people accustomed to the low fixed resolutions of early home computers, this would probably have been an acceptable limitation.
0:31 – Olivetti branded TRS-80 Model 100
07:11 – mnie to w ogóle nie dziwi, przedtem tworzono sprzęt aby działał, w związku z czym jeżeli nic się nie popsuło przez te pierwsze 90 dni, to potem już nie miało prawa się popsuć, podczas gdy teraz kupujesz nowy sprzęt i dostajesz 2 lata gwarancji, to wiesz (a przynajmniej możesz się spodziewać), że po tych 2 latach leci na złom 😎
not to be confused with Microsoft office
If only there were some technology you could have used to find out the correct way to pronounce "Kaypro."
21:27 You misspelled Pepsi, which is why search didn't work
But can it run Doom?
The battery looks like it has a couple of diodes. A very simple battery charger, just uses diodes to give the higher PSU voltage priority and provide a charging voltage.
A bit weird that the lastic clips stayed intact, while a massive chunk of the bulk broke off. Shenanigans, I say.
I think the 256 bytes guy should make a regular appeaerance, because he's brilliant.
6:33 musical instruments, like the DX7 and the PSR6100 and PSR6300 by Yamaha used the same concept: a dead cheap DRAM like the 6264 with a battery. Often a small NiCd. Non-standardized form factors and way overprized.
If you can send a text file, you can send a CP/M program. CP/M's roots are in the times of punched tape, when text was the One Universal Format, and so there's a well-known and reasonably standard textual representation for CP/M programs as text, the Intel HEX format, and CP/M came with a utility, LOAD, to convert these into binary executable COM files. Converting an existing COM file back into HEX can be done in something like five lines of Perl (or one really long one if you want to go there).
Also, in the early microcomputers' era, the main way to move stuff around was called Kermit. Many versions of Kermit could speak at least XModem. It's a really primitive protocol, which makes it simple to edit, and its limitations aren't too bad on a short cable and low noise. Doing Kermit as a type-In so that other data could then be transmitted automatically was once a somewhat common homebrew experience.
Are you sure the seller didn't drop this before they packed it? Seems rather sus.
It's KayPro, as in, "hey bro" 😄
I am almost impressed with Fedex's work on this shipment. It feels well beyond accidental damage — it's beginning to look as though they have a personal vendetta against you.
First GRiD Compass didn't use LCD, it was Plasma Discharge Display, similar to VFD stuff. And apparently screen was sizable cost of the laptop, next to buble memory.
If someone tried to convince me to part with 5k for a 'computer' that got all the way to production with the word 'detroyed' still appearing on every format function, I would definitely but politely decline.
Nice video.
At 10:00 there's a comment about not using a ROM… by the late 80s nobody, and I mean nobody, was spending the money to burn ROMs, and instead relied on EPROMs. The cost of a custom mask and ASIC was just way too high compared to a EPROM. This was common throughout the entire industry.
This reminds me of the Sinclair Z88.
B-B-B-BEE-U-NIT!! 🎶
The port on the back looks like a printer port to me.
with so much leftover space, i wonder what factors prevented having 2 character lcds rather than 1.
por5t rogue
I used to see so many of these at the thrift stores back in the day
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