Keeping up the heat ahead of IBM’s first 80386 Personal System/2 shipments, Compaq Computer Corp on Monday enhanced its Deskpro 386 with several performance-boosting additions, including a 16MHz 80387 maths co-processor option and a new disk-caching feature. The Deskpro 386, for which only the 8MHz 80287 was previously available, will now be offered with slots for both parts. Compaq Computer claims that a Deskpro 386 fitted with the 16MHz 80387 offers a 70% performance increase over one with the 8MHz part and to be four to five times faster than an 8MHz 80286-based machine with the 8MHz maths chip. Current users can buy an upgrade of a new system board with the co-processor for $999, the same price as the 80387 option alone. Co-processor and upgrade areavailable now in the US. Disk caching is now being offered as a standard feature on all models of the Deskpro 386: it is a software utility package thatworks with Compaq’s Expanded Memory Manager. Compaq claims that it speeds data retrieval in fixed disk-intensive applications by 50%. In other announcements, the company unveiled an asynchronous communications+parallel printer board as an option for all its computers; the half-size, 8-bit board, at $149, offers an additional async communications interface and an extra parallel printer interface; it is available now. The Houston, Texas firm’s 101-key enhanced keyboard is now standard on all its desktop models.
