NCR Corp is planning to use Go Corp’s Penpoint stylus-controlled operating system in future notebook computers but in the meantime it yesterday unveiled its first conventional notebook computer, the 3120, which uses the 20MHz 80386SX and weighs 5 lbs 10 oz, lighter than most competitors, in an A4-size package 1.7 high. It includes 1Mb to 5Mb CPU, 3.5 floppy and a 30Mb or 60Mb hard disk, VGA liquid crystal display with up to 12:1 contrast ratio. It has a full 86-key board with 12 function keys and separate cursor control pad. There is also an optional internal facsimile modem. Battery life is two to four hours and it costs UKP3,170 in basic configuration. In the US, NCR has also launched an entry-level personal workstation based on the new 20MHz 80486SX microprocessor. The NCR 3335 is upgradable to faster chips. It includes an NCR-designed Micro Channel chip set, which includes the processor interface controller, dual port memory controller, direct memory access, general input-output controller, and Micro Channel bus controller and enables users to upgrade BIOS via software, without changing the system chips. NCR has also designed a high-performance Super VGA 1,024 by 768 graphics chip set, supporting up to 256 colours, which is integrated on the main processor board – it is offered as the NCR 77C22E by NCR’s Microelectronics Division. To maximise multi-tasking performance, NCR uses intelligent bus masters to achieve zero wait state performance for memory read and write operations. The dual-ported interleaved memory is expandable to 64Mb. It also uses the NCR 53C700 RISC-based intelligent SCSI controller. A basic system with 4Mb CPU, 3.5 floppy, Super VGA graphics controller and 101 key workstation keyboard is $5,400.
