IBM UK sprung a surprise at the end of last week by launching the delayed PS/2 Model L40 SX 20MHz 80386SX-based notebook computer with no fanfare and ahead of the US launch, which is expected tomorrow. Apart from the price – UKP3,500 before you buy your choice of operating system – the specification of the machine suggests that IBM has at last beaten its portable computer jinx and come up with a machine that people will really want – to the extent that Compaq Computer Corp’s share price is expected to take a hit when the details get out. The machine weighs 7 lbs 12 oz with rechargeable battery pack, measures 12.8 by 10.7 by 2.1 thick, and has a 10 diagonal 640 by 480 VGA sidelit LCD screen with 32 shades of grey and the same aspect ratio as a CRT – and a VGA port enables a colour display to be attached. The 60Mb 2.5 disk has 19mS seek time and there is a 1.44Mb floppy drive. Main memory is 2Mb using 80nS RAMs, expandable to 18Mb, but to do so doubles the price. The full-size 85-key board is complemented by external numeric keypad. Neatest feature is a suspend-resume capability which means that when the lid is closed in the middle of an application, the machine goes to sleep apart from low power memory, and when it is opened again, restores where the application left on. Battery low? Close the thing, change the battery and carry on where you left off. It runs up to three hours between charges and there is an AC adaptor and can be programmed to go shut off the screen and hard disk after whatever interval the user chooses after activity ceases. Enhancements include a UKP107 trackpoint trackball-like controller and it runs MS-DOS, Windows and OS/2.
