Office worker. IBM Portable PC 5110

IBM Portable PC 5110 appeared in February 1978. In those days, there were very peculiar notions about portability, since this “baby” weighed “only” ~ 19.5 kilograms. More precisely 43 pounds. But he already possessed all the necessary user and was the development of the idea of ​​the IBM Portable PC 5100, the first self-sufficient computer of our planet.

First of all, let's get acquainted with its technical characteristics. The processor was developed by IBM and worked with a clock speed of 1.9 megahertz. RAM (RAM, RAM) in the minimum configuration was 16 kilobytes, but could be expanded to an incredible 64 kilobytes.

Its monochrome monitor had a resolution of 64 x 16. It is about text characters. He could have a built-in storage device in the form of a magnetic tape, on which it was possible to store as much as 200 kilobytes of data. Additionally, it was possible to purchase an external floppy disk drive (floppy disk drive). In this case, the amount of stored information increased to 1.2 megabytes.

Programming platform (a kind of operating system) were programming languages: APL or BASIC. One of two or even both.

The IBM 5110 was not a toy for enthusiasts, which were most of the microcomputers of that time (a typical example of the "designer" IMSAI 8080). It was intended for the needs of small businesses, although its price was quite considerable. But we will return to the question of how this or that IBM Portable PC 5110 configuration could have done some time later.

With it, you could perform the following tasks (therefore, the corresponding software existed):

• General Ledger
• Accounts payable
• Salary fund
• Accounts receivable
• Financial planning
• Material Management
• Invoice statement
• Sales analysis
• Cost estimate
• Analysis of the cost of work
• Linear programming
• Text processing (text editor)

Such was the truly gigantic list of its main tasks. The IBM 5110 became the business version of the IBM 5100, presented three years earlier and intended for engineers and mathematicians. If the IBM 5100 could use only tape for storing information and programs, then with the IBM 5110 you could use 8-inch dual floppy disks on an IBM 5114 external drive. They were not only much faster than magnetic media, but also made it possible to save significantly more data.



There were three different models of the IBM Portable PC 5110:

• model 1 - supported internal and external tape drives
• model 2 - no built-in tape drive; only external floppy drive supported
• model 3 - desktop version; had two built-in 8-inch floppy disks

Each of these three models was compatible with an external drive for IBM 5114 diskettes, as well as an IBM 5103 dot matrix printer. It is interesting to see how the price of a computer depended on the amount of RAM and programming language.

The basic version had the programming language BASIC:

• 16 kilobytes: 8 thousand 475 US dollars
• 32 kilobytes: 10 thousand 225 US dollars
• 48 kilobytes: 11 thousand 975 US dollars
• 64 kilobytes: 13 thousand 725 US dollars

The APL programming version cost a thousand dollars more. With two programming languages ​​- another thousand (two thousand dollars more expensive than the corresponding basic version).

The most common were the following configurations:

• 16 kilobytes of RAM; 1 magnetic drive; printer with a print speed of 80 characters per second; 13 thousand 075 US dollars
• 16 kilobytes of RAM; 2 floppy disks; printer with a print speed of 80 characters per second; 17 thousand 725 US dollars
• 32 kilobytes of RAM; 2 floppy disks; printer with a print speed of 120 characters per second; 19 thousand 975 US dollars
• 48 kilobytes of RAM; 4 floppy disks; printer with a print speed of 120 characters per second; 27 thousand 775 US dollars

For extra money you could buy compatible devices:

• Built-in magnetic drive: 1 thousand 400 US dollars
• External drive for magnetic tape IBM 5106: 1 thousand 850 US dollars
• Printer 5103 with a print speed of 80 characters per second: 3 thousand 200 US dollars
• Printer 5103 with a print speed of 120 characters per second: 3 thousand 700 US dollars
• The drive for floppy disks 5114 (on 1 disk): 4 thousand 150 US dollars
• The drive for floppy disks 5114 (on 2 disks): 6 thousand 050 US dollars
• Bisync-modem: 2 thousand US dollars
• Async modem: $ 900

A few years later, real portable computers appeared, the era of which was discovered in 1984 by the famous NEC PC-8300. But in 1978, personal computers took their first tentative steps and few of them could boast features such as the IBM Portable PC 5110. In the late seventies of the last century, IBM was at the forefront of high technologies. Almost any significant event in the computer industry was associated with her name.

Adapted from oldcomputers.net

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/computers/ofisnyj-truzhenik-ibm-portable-pc-5110.html.