Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!df From: df@cs.purdue.EDU (dan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops Subject: Re: Unix laptops Message-ID: <9266@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 15 Jan 90 22:54:37 GMT Reply-To: df@cs.purdue.edu (dan) Organization: Purdue University Lines: 35 In article pedz@pedz.austin.ibm.com (Perry Smith) writes: > ... >If we totally disrequard price, is there a laptop which runs Unix in a >true multi-process environment? I'd like to have BSD Unix (or mach). In the latest _Byte_ they have a quick look at a "portable mainframe" manufactured by Opus Systems. Basically, it's a 20 or 25 MHz 88000 risc machine that uses a 16MHz 80386sx for i/o, screen updates, ect. It runs Unix, X Windows, Motif, etc. >I'd like to be battery powered although I could live with being >severly hampered in battery mode if I could have all the power I >needed once I got to a place where I could plug it in. As far as >power, of course I'd like to have as much as possible. I think 5 mips >would be plenty though. I'd also like to have an expandable disk >system where I could have a limited amount of disk in battery mode and >a huge amount of disk when I finally got back home. I don't expect >all the disk to be housed in the laptop. Unix by itself is big plus I >like to use emacs and TeX and some other huge packages so I need quite >a bit of disk space. But I don't need this when I'm sitting on a >plane (for example). It weighs in at 22 lbs (ouch!), reportedly runs at 17 or 21 Mips (zoom), uses a VGA gas plasma display; but only has 2 Meg of RAM and a tiny 40 Meg Hard disk. The thingy runs on the brain dead AT bus, and the 88000 card is in one of the three slots that comes inside of it. It allows you to run DOS and Unix simultaneously on it. Since the short review didn't mention batteries, I would assume it needs a plug. Hope you like it -- it costs $13995 for the 20MHz version. -- dan df@medusa.cs.purdue.edu