Re: Atari Portfolio
"Peet42" wrote in message:
> Hi, folks... I wasn't sure whether to post
> here or in the "PC Clone" section...
> I recently aquired an Atari Portfolio and
> parallel port, and am planning to list it on
> eBay. Does anybody out there know them
> well? I'm just looking for some snippets of
> info to include on the page with it - it looks
> a little bare at the moment. Apart from
> "dry" tech specs, all I know about it is that
> a Portfolio featured in the cash machine
> heist in "Terminator 2"... :D
Heh! How could I forget. I nearly got myself
one. Instead my Dad brought me a
typewriter instead (the rest is history)!
Here's the details I have on it which date
from a review of the machine in 1991:
Screen can be configured as a static 8-line
by 40 column screen or a movable 8 by
40 window in a virtual full-size 25 line by
80 column screen.
The OS is refered to as DIP operating
system which resembles MS-DOS. 'A:' &
'C:' correspond to the Portfolio's card drive
& RAM disk. The RAM disk can be sized
anywhere between 8k & a value which
corresponds to the maximum available
memory. The portfolio comes with 128k
of RAM but can hold as much as 512k (
however I had a funny feeling that it
could hold as much as 640k of RAM).
The RAM is kept active when the machine
is switched off (handy because the contents
of the RAM disk will remain - a PC RAM
would naturally be erased!). This machine
uses 3 AA batteries which not only keeps
the RAM active, but it has a Auto Resume
caoability, so a tap of the key wakes up
the computer & takes you back to where
you were!
The speedsheet (which supports Lotus 1-2-3
documents) handles up to 255 rows by 127
columns & supports 44 1-2-3 functions. The
machine comes with a whole range of suite
applications like address book, autodialer,
calculator, scheduler & text editor.
The options I see for this machine are:
Desktop Card Drive, Serial Port Module,
Parallel Port Module, 32k RAM card, 64k
RAM Card & 128k RAM card.
That's the best I can do!
Cheers.
