Hello,

BobGreg said:

Isn't it something how something that once was is no more. My company was a Compaq reseller and service center. Compaq "dethroned" IBM as the lead PC maunfacturer. Now people ask, Compaq who? Same for Lotus 123, Supercalc, WordStar and a lot of other names that marked our generation is the IT industry. When I first started mu business there were only 5 computer dealers/IT companies list in all of the RI yellow pages. By the early 2000s there were 6 pages.

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Hi Bob and welcome to Photrio and back into the world of film.
Your comments about Compaq brought back a lot of memories. In the mid 1980 I was supplied with a Compaq Pro Portable computer for a project. It had a 10MB hard drive and 5 1/4" floppy drive. The screen was about 5 or 7 " and came with Supercalc and Wordstar. We were so excited to get a state of the art portable at the time. It was a luggable more than a portable because it weighed about 20lbs or more but we managed to get it on a flight as carry on luggage. Good memories

gordrob said:

Hi Bob and welcome to Photrio and back into the world of film.
Your comments about Compaq brought back a lot of memories. In the mid 1980 I was supplied with a Compaq Pro Portable computer for a project. It had a 10MB hard drive and 5 1/4" floppy drive. The screen was about 5 or 7 " and came with Supercalc and Wordstar. We were so excited to get a state of the art portable at the time. It was a luggable more than a portable because it weighed about 20lbs or more but we managed to get it on a flight as carry on luggage. Good memories

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I watch the computer industry grow up and a lot of "us" computer people were instrumental in the industry's growth. It wasn't just the Silicon Valley "whiz kids" but a lot of people like yu and I. I have a little factoid for you. Prior to becoming the industry PC and Server giant, for a while in the laptop and portable markets Compaq played second fiddle to Zenith Data Systems, who got the portable market started. ZDS made the Zenith Super Sport models. The Zenith Mini Sport models were powerful and light as a feather had an innovative 2" floppy disk drive. The problem with that was, although it worked great, a box of 10 BASF 2" disks sold for 150.00. With the strengthening of the PC market for business and for home, the top 3 vendors at any given time, in any order were Compaq, IBM, and Zenith. Zentih still would have been a player if it wasn't for the fact that ZDS merged with Packard Bell and that killed the brand.

gordrob said:

Hi Bob and welcome to Photrio and back into the world of film.
Your comments about Compaq brought back a lot of memories. In the mid 1980 I was supplied with a Compaq Pro Portable computer for a project. It had a 10MB hard drive and 5 1/4" floppy drive. The screen was about 5 or 7 " and came with Supercalc and Wordstar. We were so excited to get a state of the art portable at the time. It was a luggable more than a portable because it weighed about 20lbs or more but we managed to get it on a flight as carry on luggage. Good memories

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More than likely it was a Compaq Portable which came with a 9" green CRT, (later models had grren or amber CRTs) 5¼" FDD. New that unit sold w/o a hard drive for around 3000.00. You could ad 10MB HDD with controller for about 1500. Although the screen was green monochrome it supported CGA grpahics. That category of portable computers were called "luggables" which included the Zenith Z160 Portable. These portables weighed in at anywhere form 30-36lbs depending on the configuration.