IBM Corp’s planned 603-based Power Personal personal lap-top was at CeBIT, or rather, the developer’s Portable System was. The system shipping to developers costs them around $6,000 and comes with a 66MHz 603. However, loitering about the stand, we discovered that the finished article should cost rather less: around the same as IBM’s other ThinkPads, in fact. It will also be fitted with a 100MHz 603E processor. Like the iAPX-86-based ThinkPads, it’s certainly a good looking box, twin speakers sit on either side of the space-bar, and a tiny camera sits atop the flip-up screen, designed for video-conferencing work. IBM says that the developer’s model offer up to five hours of battery life, depending on usage. How that changes with a 100MHz 603E on board remains to be seen, but presumably the processor speed will be software-switchable. Presumably too, the final, end-user machines will have less RAM and disk capacity – the developer’s lap-tops come with 810Mb disks and 24Mb or 32Mb of RAM, for the Windows NT or AIX versions respectively. RAM is expandable to 80Mb, and there is a 680Mb CD-ROM built into the front, as well as PCMCIA expansion slots. The only thing that you have to plug in internally is the floppy disk drive. No update on when the end-user machines will ship was forthcoming, but if they really are going to use 603Es, it can’t be that soon. Alarmingly, for OS/2 aficionados, neither the laptop nor the developers machines are yet shipping with the operating system – AIX or Windows NT are the only alternatives you get, as yet.
