It is not clear that there is a market out there clamouring for a lap-top version of the Macintosh, but until Apple Computer Inc comes out with one, such a machine will continue to be the subject of endless speculation and pent-up excitement. And for those who can’t wait for Apple to complete its own design, NexSys Inc of San Francisco has a solution in the form of the necessary additions to make a 10 lb portable Mac out of parts from a Mac 128K, Plus, SE or SE/30. According to Newsbytes, the do-it yourself TravelMac kit costs $1,800 and consists of a logic board with 2,400bps modem, video interface and power supply, a black and white supertwist liquid crystal diode display with cold cathode back-lighyt and 512 by 342 pixel resolution, a rechargeable battery that will do four hours, built in speaker, indicators, built-in speaker, case and carrying bag. The user brings to the party the motherboard, disk drive, keyboard and mouse from whichever model of Mac he wants to carry around with him. There is also a $1,000 version for hackers, which eliminates the case and has a blue-and-white 640 by 400 pixel LCD in place of the black-and-white one. The Trav elMac is being marketed for the San Francisco firm by Softsel in the US, and the complete system is expected to work out at about half the price Apple will put on its own portable Mac, now seen for August.
