It's 1992 and the PowerBook Duo has just been announced...
11th August 2006 11:27 GMT
Forgotten Tech Even as Apple appears to be preparing to adopt Intel's Core 2 Duo mobile microprocessor, let's not forget the Mac maker's earliest portable computing products with the Duo brand: the PowerBook Duo 210, 230 and 270c.
Introduced in October 1992, the Duos were Apple's attempt to attract buyers after a notebook that not only offered solid performance but was a darn sight more portable than the feature-packed notebooks of the time. Back then, that meant ditching the integrated floppy disk drive and many of the standard Mac I/O ports, and adopting a slimline casing.
Equipped with Motorola's 68030 CPU clocked to 25MHz (210) and 33MHz (230 and 270c), the Duos shipped with 4MB of RAM and 80-240MB of hard drive storage. The 210 and 230 incorporated 9in, 640 x 400, 4-bit greyscale LCD panels, while the 270c had an 8.4in, 640 x 480, 8-bit colour display. The 270c also contained a maths co-processor chip, a part absent from the other Duos.
The Duos were offered alongside the DuoDock, a desktop chassis into which the portable slipped. It provided enhanced video options, the missing floppy drive - these were pre-optical days - and SCSI support. Less well-remembered is the MiniDock, a simply plug-on port replicator designed for folk who didn't want such a full desktop system.
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