Portable 100 – September 1987

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Editorial

This original issue of Portable 100 magazine was on newsstands on the same month as the founding of GO Corporation in 1987.

While this magazine didn’t address pen-based computing directly, it serves as an important artifact describing the current state of mobile computing in the late 1980s.

Oral History

The Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 was the first portable computer I ever purchased, sometime around 1985. The device easily fit into a student backpack, ran on easy-to-find AA batteries, and featured a low-power-consuming LCD character-based screen that gave me confidence that the battery would last for days or weeks. Plus, the device featured a full-sized keyboard that was a pleasure to use.

I remember using the device most often in the graduate library at McGill University in Montreal. After taking notes in the library, I would return to my apartment, connect a custom-wired serial cable, and download my notes to my IBM PC clone (self-built) through a serial-modem session. As low-tech as this sounds, this was groundbreaking for me, greatly increasing my productivity.

I still have that original Model 100, in almost perfect condition. I have since, somehow, acquired a second one, most likely in the early 1990s at the regular Foothill College Electronics Flea Market in Silicon Valley. It's still a beautiful machine to view and hold.

John Jerney
Editor and Publisher
Pen-Based Computing: The Journal of Stylus Systems
mobilis: the mobile computing lifestyle magazine

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