New Compaq Deskpro 386

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New Compaq personal computers with Intel 80386 microprocessor

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Compaq has announced a new professional workstation based on an Intel 80386 at 20 MHz processor, which replaces the previous Deskpro 386 20e model. The machine is called Desktop 20 and is built on the foundations of the Flex system which achieves a 5% higher performance of than the corresponding Ibm model, or the PS 2 Model 70 121. The new processor is available in three versions, with a 110 MB Hard Disk (able to be doubled if necessary), with a 40 MByte hard disk and lastly with no hard disk, or in the configuration for the local network. The Italian market prices of the three units have already been decided at, respectively, 12,400,000, 9,400,000, and 7,400,000 lire. The outward form of the system is identical to that of the Deskpro 386 computers introduced last June and has been conceived to bring together in a small space of this size all the basic functions of a workstation. The SD memory expansion is housed internally at a dedicated slot, and there remain four free slots to accommodate standard type cards (the Ps 2 70 has only three slots, which are necessary for the eventuality of future Ram expansion). The front of the system can house three drives, one of which may be for the 5.25-inch floppy disk, a second for a 3.5-inch diskette and the third for a backup tape. The hard disk (single, or double, is inserted inside of the chassis. The function of controlling the VGA video is embedded on the motherboard, and you can mount on this a coprocessor suitable for applications necessary to carry out large numerical calculations (engineering, CAD, etc. . .). Rod Canion, who personally oversaw the launch of the new system, did not provide any data about the expected announcement of two laptop systems based on 80286 and 80386 processors. Oldenburg:Regarding the question put to him by PCWeek from Italy, the president of Compaq has confirmed that there are some portable models under construction and that the date of their announcement has already been fixed, without specifying what this date is. The company will present its other products within one year. The characteristics of these new laptops expected in the near future, according to reports gathered from PCWeek, are: black on white liquid crystal video with a resolution of 640×480 pixels, 64 bytes of RAM, a 3.5 -inch 720 Kbytes floppy and hard disk of at least 20 MB. However regarding the hard drive, solutions are provided with higher capacities and in all cases the machine will not weigh more than 7.8 kilograms. Both the laptops will operate with a battery that has two hours of autonomy using the hard drive, and an internal modem running at 1,200 bits per second. It will also be possible to connect an external expansion box equipped with its own power supply.

Roberto Mazzoni