ScuzzBlog: Diaries May 2018
Entry 4th May 2018: Post: 1
ACT Xi .. Apricot Portable
OK carrying on with the current theme of portables, or anything
with a handle I give you the Apricot Xi.
I do remember these computers given that we had one to run the
office accounts. Man was it a complicated beast. In the end I got
rid of the thing and got the office and Amstrad running Sage. There
use to be this lady visit the office with her own portable one of
these and then the office manager and she would spend the day
plugged into the computers. None of us really had the first clue
what they were doing, and in truth I don't think the computer
ever earned the money it cost.
Mine has this banged up monitor which looks like it was chucked
in the skip and recovered. Dunno, been like it since I had it.
The computer boots up and the hard drive spins but needs the floppy
to get it going. Whilst I have an Apricot disk it registers an
error so not sure what is not working.
Unusual little computer. The keyboard clips into the bottom and the
handle slides out. Sadly if you leave the keyboard connected you
cannot stand the thing up as a suitcase with the handle. The front
panel which only has the floppy has this full width cover. There
is also a small panel on the keyboard where you can see various
text entered. This is a throwback from the typewriters of the day
or so it seems.
Well there you have it another computer with a letter 'A'
Apricot Xi made by ACT in 1984
Full stroke keyboard withy dynamic function keys.
CPU is an Intel 8086 running at around 5 MHz
RAM is 256 Kb up to 768 Kb
Has a 3.5" floppy drive which shows most of its guts
through the slot so that's the reason for the cover.
Runs MS-DOS 2.0 and CP/M 86 though tends to run its own stuff.
These things were not cheap and basically a business machine.
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