Digital Equipment Corp will have a pen-based personal computer out within a year, the company was saying at its DECworld show, where it showed cardboard replicas of some of the conceptual designs that have been put together in its labs. According to Electronic News, the company has not yet decided whether to give the go-ahead to develop some of its designs to production or to buy in a machine. The five mock-ups on show ranged from a chequebook-sized unit to a notebook machine with a hidden keyboard revealed when the screen is flipped up, as well as a pen. There were also a couple of wearable models looking like personal stereos with separate writing tablets. The processor currently under consideration is the 80386SL but the 80486 or even the Alpha might be used in future. Target weight is under 3 lbs 8 oz for all models, and Go Corp’s PenPoint and Microsoft Corp’s Pen Windows are the operating system options. They would include wireless Ethernet connection and a speech option is under consideration. The company also showed a 40MHz 80386-based book-sized machine that can be placed in a desktop stand and used with a separate monitor and keyboard, or plugged into a DEC hub as a server; with 180Mb disk and 4Mb to 64Mb memory it is set for the third quarter. A version built into an active-matrix flat-panel display with 1,024 by 760 resolution is set for the same time.
