Grid Systems Corp has announced an IBM-compatible portable for delivery in early March that according to UK managing director Allen Brain can be placed on the lap without cutting off the blood supply to the legs. At 8.5 lbs, the 13 x 11 battery- or mains-powered GridLite compares very favourably with the likes of Zenith’s Z-171, IBM’s Convertible and Toshiba’s 3100, all of which weigh in around 15 lbs. The 80C86-based machine features a 640 by 200 pixel 10 diagonal green-on-yellow LCD screen, and one 720Mb 3.5 internal floppy drive. An external 3.5 drive and a built-in 1200/300 bps Hayes-compatible modem are amongst the options. The basic GridLite, which starts at UKP1,480, includes 128K RAM, expandable using the Intel-Microsoft Above Board to 1.6Mb, and eight plug-in ROM slots.
