portable computer

Commodore SX-64 (1984)

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Commodore stated this as the first color portable computer. I’m not sure if it’s entirely true but it was quite common to have only monochrome screens in portable computers back then (Osborne, KayPro, Compaq/IBM Portable). I was surprised how small this machine is when I saw it in real life. Second surprise was its weight – with about 10 kilograms it is a heavy machine for its size. On the other hand for less than $1000 you could have a portable computer with a 5-inch color screen, 64KB of RAM and a built-in floppy drive to run advanced software like VisiCalc.

People see C64 mostly as a gaming machine. I’m not sure if this was so different in the 80s but SX-64 was not a huge success. It doesn’t make much sense for portable gaming and business customers were probably more interested in CP/M compatible machines (although more expensive).

Anyway, I like SX-64 a lot. It’s a very nice portable computer with a good color screen and a comfortable keyboard.