Amstrad NC100
At a nerdy flea market, I couldn’t withstand and brought home this gem: an Amstrad NC100.
It’s a lovely little portable computer, a bit larger than a sheet of A4 paper, and of course a lot thicker. It uses the famous Z80 CPU, an ample 64 kB of RAM, and a really really bad 80x8 characters LCD screen. On the back, there are a connector for a printer and a serial port (so that content can actually be transferred to other devices). There also is a PCMCIA slot that can be used to boost the memory to 1 MB.
The NC100 comes with a standard variety of software built right into the firmware: a text processor, an address book, a calculator, and a BASIC interpreter (of course).
This machine is powered by four AA batteries, and supposedly lasts for 20 hours. There also is a CR2032 cell to make sure the memory doesn’t vanish. Oh, and the keyboard is awesome because it’s full size, and the mechanical keys are quite good.
Amstrad introduced the NC100 to the market in 1992. From today’s perspective, where every smart phone can do more than this, it looks laughable, but remember its age. Back then, portable computing used to be clunky.
What do I do with it, you ask? Nothing in particular, I just like to grow my collection of old but functioning hardware.
Tags: the-nerdy-bit