Compaq Portable (Plus or Original)

The Compaq Portable was announced November 1982 and shipped in January of 1983. This was the first legally clone of the IBM PC with a fail-safe "Virgin" backward-engineered copy of the IBM ROM-BIOS (the only part of the original IBM PC 5150 that IBM controlled). In its first year, Compaq broke all corporate records for growth. Eagle PC and Columbia Data Products preceded Compaq in the game of building IBM-compatibles but did not make the cut legally or in a business sense.

Our Compaq may be a Plus model with a Rhodime 10MB fixed disk and two floppy drives but it could also be an original model but with an aftermarket hard drive and single slimline floppy replacing one of the early floppies. Know any more about Compaq, contact us!

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Suitcase format!

For your interest, the dimensions of the Compaq Portable (really Luggable) standing up:

16 inches high (add another 1 1/2 inches to height for handle)
8 1/2 inches wide at the base and 8 inches at the top (the unit is tapered)
19 inches in length.

The keyboard is 8 1/2 inches wide so when it is separated and on the table, it would add another 9 or so inches to the 8 inches with the unit laid flat on the table space .

See Also:

The team that brought you Compaq: Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto

Original Sketch of the Compaq, drawn in a "House of Pies" restaurant in Houston TX. See Ben Rosen's story of Compaq here.

DigiBarn's original IBM PC 5150,
Eagle PC and Columbia Data Products IBM-compatible machines

Old-computers site on the Compaq Portable

Compaq Company History Site

A Compaq history & timeline at www.mavos.nl