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From: anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops
Subject: Re: Why so little variety?
Keywords: notebooks wishes
Message-ID: <11919@uwm.edu>
Date: 7 May 91 22:04:27 GMT
References: <1991May7.000748.18429@xanadu.com>
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Lines: 52

In article <1991May7.000748.18429@xanadu.com> ravi@xanadu.com (Ravi Pandya) writes:
>With several dozen different 386sx notebooks out there, why are they
>all almost identical? Why isn't some manufacturer getting the idea

Well, sometimes they *are* identical.  The DataWorld 386sx notbook
that is mentioned in a later article is basicly the Tandon laptop.

Companys such as Sharp, Sanyo, TI, Everex, CompuAdd, Zeos and others
sell only a couple different laptops.  There may only be four or five
truly unique 386sx notebooks on the market right now.  The others are
just relabed perhaps with some extra support or software.

>for a Compaq LTE 386s (admittedly an extreme example). Are laptop
>manufacturers going to have to learn all over again the sense of using
>standard SIMMs instead of expensive proprietary schemes? I thought
>we'd been through this once with the desktop manufacturers. Or are we
>simply at the beginning of the formation of another de facto standard?
>What might it turn out to be?

The PCMCIA / JEIDA memory card standard looks pretty good.  These are
the cards used in the Poquet PC and the HP-95LX.  They support RAM,
ROM, and other devices.  This could be the memory standard that
everyone will be using on all peronsal computers in 10 years.

>EXTERNAL FLOPPY -- only the Commax Ultrathin. Of all the 386sx
>notebooks, it is by far the lightest (4 lbs), and smallest (8.25" x
>10.25" x 1.25"). An external floppy drive is included in the price. I

The Spark Snap 1+1, Zenith Minisport HD, and Toshiba T1000XE also don't
have a floppy drive, and have just a hard drive or lots of RAM to cut
down on weight and size.

The three major handheld MS-DOS machines: the Atari Portfolio, Poquet PC
and the brand new Hewlett-Packet HP-95LX are all not much bigger than
a 3.5" floppy drive and of course have no built-in floppy.

>	Ravi Pandya
>	Xanadu Operating Company
>	550 California Avenue
>	Suite 101
>	Palo Alto, CA 94306
>	415 856 4112 ext 122
>	415 856 2251 fax
>	ravi@xanadu.com

Hey, what's the latest on Xanadu, any release dates? :-)
--
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