Amstrad NC100

The Amstrad NC100 was an A4-size, portable Z80-based computer, released by Amstrad in 1992. It featured 64 KB of RAM, the Protext word processor, various organiser-like facilities (diary, address book and time manager), a simple calculator, and a version of BBC BASIC.

Its screen was small, eight rows by 80 columns, and not backlit, but this let the NC100 run for up to 20 hours on four standard AA cell batteries. There was an RS232 serial port, a parallel port for connecting a printer, and a PC card socket, by means of which the computer's memory could be expanded up to 1 MB.

Upgrades

An upgraded version, the "NC200", appeared in late 1993, featuring a 3.5" floppy disk drive able to read/write MS-DOS-formatted double density disks, 128 KB RAM, some extra software - most notably a spreadsheet and three Tetris-like games - and a larger, backlit screen. However, this change required much greater power use: 5 C cell batteries, lasting for only a few hours. The backlight can be manually toggled off to save power by pressing the Control and Caps Lock keys at the same time.

An intermediate version, the NC150, was also produced, but was available only in Italy and France; its case had the same design as the NC100, but it included the games later seen on the NC200.

External links

* [http://www.ncus.org.uk The Amstrad NC Users' Site]