Apricot Portable
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| Developer | Apricot Computers |
|---|---|
| Type | portable computer |
| Release date | 1984 |
| Introductory price | £1965 |
| Operating system | MS-DOS 2.11, Concurrent CP/M Version 3, CP/M 86 |
| CPU | Intel 8086 CPU @ 4.77 MHz |
| Memory | 256 KiB RAM |
| Storage | 3.5" floppy drive |
| Display | 80-column/25-line LCD |
| Connectivity | Infrared Wireless keyboard / Optional wireless mouse |
| Dimensions | 45 cm x 20 cm x 17.2 cm |
| Weight | 5.8 kg |
The Apricot Portable was a computing device manufactured by Apricot Computers, and was released to the public in November 1984. It was Apricot Computers' first attempt at manufacturing a portable computer, which were gaining popularity at the time. Compared to other portable computers of its time like the Compaq Portable and the Commodore SX-64, the Apricot Portable was the first computer to have an 80-column and 25-line LCD screen and an input/output speech recognition system.
Apricot Computers designed the Apricot Portable to be transportable for easy accessibility wherever one may be. It consisted of a screen monitor and a wireless, infrared keyboard that made up its main parts. It also included other notable features such as a built-in disk drive and a software bundled set.
The Apricot Portable was contained inside a hard charcoal gray carrying case and consisted of two main parts: the central unit (monitor) and the keyboard. An optional mouse-like track board was also available. It was used by either pointing the track board at the computer and moving the trackball around with one's thumb or rolling the trackball on a flat surface. A basic Microsoft mouse could have also been used in place of the track board via the RS-232 serial port located in the back within the computer. The mouse and the keyboard are both battery-powered. However, the central unit itself must be plugged into a three-wire wall outlet.
Being 450 mm long x 172 mm wide x 200 mm high, the Portable's size was designed to be not too big nor small, making it easier for it to be portable. It massed an overall weight of 13 pounds.
The Portable's overall design was thought to be very unusual because the model's central unit and keyboard were not connected at all physically with any sort of wire. Instead, the connection between the keyboard and the central unit was made by infrared signals passing between the two parts. If an object blocked the space in between the two, the communication between them would become disconnected. Apricot Computers chose to use an infrared signal communication system because it was cheaper than using a cable connection.
The Portable was known for being the first to harness a full 25-line liquid-crystal display (LCD) screen on a portable computer. The LCD screen was originally made by Hitachi in Japan however, Apricot Computers was not satisfied with parts of its design. Specifically, the speed of its controller chip, which is responsible for adjusting certain parts of the screen like the contrast, was too slow. This prompted the company to design its own controller chip for the screen that operated very fast.
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