Apricot Portable

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Apricot Portable was Apricot Computers' attempt at a portable computer, first released in November 1984. It had a 3.5" floppy drive, 4.77 MHz CPU and 256 KB RAM. It was the first computer to use an 80-column/25-line LCD and speech recognition for input/output. The speech recognition software held 4096 words, with only 64 available at a given time. It was also unique in the way that it had an infrared link between it and the keyboard; this was relatively new at the time. However, if an object blocked the infrared beam, communications would be cut off, of course. Due to the large amount of interference that other infrared sources could cause, the communications protocol used by the keyboard had to feature 4 parity bits per byte. Engineers found that any less than this would not work correctly. The Apricot also featured a somewhat Mac-like graphical interface. It was originally priced at £1965.

The unit used an infrared keyboard because the infrared system was cheaper than using a cable.

Manufactured by ACT in the UK in 1984
lntel 8086 at 5 Mhz
with 256k RAM, up to 1024k
VRAM 128k with the color option
ROM 32k
External monitor : 640 x 256 (8 colors simultaneously out of a palette of 16)
Centronics parallel, RS232 serial,RGB monitor ports
Apricot-compatible expansion slot
One Sony 3.5'' disk-drive, double-sided, 720k
MS-DOS 2.11, Concurrent CP/M Version 3, CP/M 86

Manufacturer: Apricot
Date: November 1984



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Apricot Portable Manuals:

Item Manufacturer Date
Apricot MS-DOS User Guide Apricot 1983
Apricot F1 Service Manual Apricot 1984
InterMedia Owners Guide 1989
Apricot ZEN-PC Owners Handbook Mitsubishi 1993

Apricot Portable Articles:

Item Manufacturer Date
Memories - Memories at Apricot Unknown
Memories - Computers in the Dark Ages (Apricot Computers) Unknown

Magazines RELATED to Apricot Portable in our Library

Item Manufacturer Date
Personal Computer World - May 1996 Unknown
Byte December 1992 Unknown
Personal Computer World - October 1983 Oct 1983
Practical Computing - January 1984 Jan 1984
Personal Computer World - March 1984 Mar 1984
16 Bit Computing - April 1984 16 Bit Computing Apr 1984
Personal Computer World - May 1984 May 1984
16 Bit Computing - May 1984 16 Bit Computing May 1984
Practical Computing - October 1984 Oct 1984
Personal Computer World - October 1984 Oct 1984
Personal Computer World - November 1984 Nov 1984
Practical Computing - December 1984 Dec 1984
Personal Computer World - December 1984 Dec 1984
Practical Computing - January 1985 Jan 1985
Personal Computer World - February 1985 Feb 1985
Personal Computer World - September 1985 1 Sep 1985
Practical Computing - October 1985 Oct 1985
Practical Computing - January 1986 Jan 1986
Personal Computer World - January 1986 Jan 1986
Personal Computer World Special: Business Computing The 1986 Survival Guide Apr 1986
Practical Computing - July 1986 Jul 1986
PC Management August 1986 Aug 1986
Practical Computing - September 1986 Sep 1986
Personal Computer World - September 1986 1 Sep 1986
Practical Computing - November 1986 Nov 1986
PC Management April 1987 Apr 1987
Personal Computer World - April 1987 1 Apr 1987
Practical Computing - August 1987 Aug 1987
Practical Computing - September 1987 Sep 1987
Personal Computer World - January 1988 1 Jan 1988
Personal Computer World - November 1988 1 Nov 1988
Personal Computer World - March 1989 1 Mar 1989
PC Pro Issue 1 November 1994 Dennis 1 Nov 1994
PC Pro Issue 2 December 1994 Dennis 1 Dec 1994
PC Pro January 1995 Dennis 1 Jan 1995
Personal Computer World - July 1996 1 Jul 1996
Acorn User - December 1988 27 May 2009
Acorn User - October 1992 17 Jun 2009

Other Systems Related To Apricot Portable:

Item Manufacturer Date
Apricot XI Apricot 1983
Apricot XI Prototype Apricot 1983
Apricot F1 Apricot 1984
Apricot PC XI Apricot 1984
Apricot Point 7 Apricot June 1984
Apricot Chameleon Apricot 1985
Apricot F2 Apricot 1985
Apricot F10 Apricot 1985
Apricot XEN (FD/HD?) Apricot October 1985
Apricot XEN Apricot October 1985
Apricot XEN-i 386/45 Apricot 1988
Apricot NT 386SX-25 Apricot January 1992
Apricot XEN-PC Apricot 1995
Apricot XEN-PCm Apricot 1995

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH2143. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

 

Apricot Portable

  Book Archive   [3]
  Software Archive   [14]
  Peripherals   [8]
  Promotional Items   [4]

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Articles

Memories - Computers in the Dark Ages (Apricot Computers)
Memories - Memories at Apricot

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