This one is often called luggable, because of its 9 kg weight. This "portable" computer did not "lay down" like most of the others was accustomed to do. No, it was standing on one side. When you opened it and lowered the side down, the keyboard was in the cover. In front of you, the computer was standing with its red-and-brown plasma screen, which could show 16 shades of grey. The screen could be drawn out at the bottom for good performance, because it could be angled.

To the right of the screen was a 3.5" disk drive. It came out at the top, because it also could be angled, and the size was 1.44 MB. Really different from what one is accustomed today.

This machine is one of the two so-called "luggable" models that IBM produced as a part of the PS/2 family. In the 8573-121 configuration you got a 386DX CPU running at 20MHz paired with a 120MB hard disk. All things considered this was a high end mobile computer system in its day. It runs from AC power only and has no battery inside. Both the P70 and P75 "luggable" systems were very expensive when new. As a result, neither unit is overly common...so if you can find one, it may well be worth picking up.

The display panel is a plasma type and displays everything in a brilliant orange color. It is capable of 16 color VGA output at most. The machine's onboard graphics are also VGA and can drive an external CRT display in up to 16 colors at 640x480.

386DX-20 CPU
8MB RAM
120MB IBM DBA ESDI hard disk
1.44 Mb Floppy Drive

It has a part number of 23F3055 and although the model was introduce in 1989, this machine was made in Japan in January 1990 and was very kindly donated by Chris Gladman

Manufacturer: IBM
Date: January 1990

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH30497. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

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