London-based HM Systems Plc which, with its Minstrel workstation was one of the first vendors to ship an 80486-based machine, says it also plans to be one of the first off the mark with Pentium machines. It is presently working on a Pentium-upgradable board for its Expresso line of personal computers which it intends to have ready by the summer. Some new business computing products – it will say no more than that are also planned for the end of the year. In the mean time, HM Systems has recently launched a new range of upgradable, modular notebooks that can take 66MHz 80486DX2 chips. The machines have built-in fans – which should come in handy for any Pentium-based cousins no doubt – and come with removable 80Mb, 120Mb or 200Mb 2.5 disks. A 450Mb drive version is promised soon too. Module options include a trackball, facsimile modem, scanner interface, local area network adaptor, SCSI and PCMCIA slots. There is also a choice of monochrome, passive and active colour displays. The XP weighs 6.38 lbs including battery and measures 11.7 by 8.85 by 1.77. Prices start at UKP1,250 and rise to UKP3,500. One HM customer recently tested his ‘rugged’ notebook to the limit when a lorry driver reversed a 10-ton truck over it. Apparently the machine’s screen and the motherboard survived intact – but alas not the floppy drive.
