Collection · Computer
Compaq Portable
Compaq's 1983 luggable was a full IBM PC compatible in a sewing-machine case.
Technical record
- Category
- Computer
- Collection status
- Held by ATX Computer Museum
- Reference
- ATX-CAT-COMPAQ-PORTABLE
Background
Compaq's 1983 luggable was a full IBM PC compatible in a sewing-machine case. The hardware was the easy part. The BIOS was the problem, and Compaq solved it with a clean-room reimplementation: one team documented what IBM's BIOS did, a second team who had never seen IBM's code wrote one that behaved the same way.