Donor: David Coahran
David Coahran received this in 1992.
To quote Wikipedia, "The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer." It was released by Osborne Computer Corporation in April, 1981 as their flagship product. Osborne Computer initially enjoyed strong sales on it (competing products from Kaypro, Apple, IBM, and Compaq reduced Osborne Computer's market share) and started development on successor products, the Osborne Executive and Osborne Vixen. There was some speculation that Osborne Computer's bankruptcy in 1985 was a result of statements made by the founder, Adam Osborne, in 1983 about the Executive and/or Vixen's advanced planned specifications and capabilities long before those models would be available for release; allegedly, these statements hurt demand for the existing Osborne 1 line and were the primary impetus for bankruptcy. Proponents of this theory coined the term "Osborne Effect" to describe it and similar situations.
Specifications: The Osborne 1 uses an 8-bit 4 MHz Z80 CPU, has 65KB of memory, and a tiny 52-character monochrome CRT screen. Additionally, it has dual 5 1/4" floppy drives; most unit shipped with drives for single-sided floppies, but a dual density upgrade was available and appears to be installed in this unit. The peripheral interfaces consist of an IEEE-488 parallel(?) port, and an RS232 1200 or 300 baud serial port. It runs the CP/M 2.2 operating system, a popular choice for the time, and this unit came to us with the following software:
Came with a variety of 5 1/4" floppies in two boxes: 2x Grafiks version 2.0 system and example disks Grafiks system and example double-density disk Chartech 2.0 disks 1 and 2 SuperCalc 2 disk DG/SYSTEMS Media Master (1984) disk XtraKey Universal, Side2, SWP.com disk "Reprint copy #1" disk Stardrive Graphic Express program and data disks 2x CP/M System disk CP/M Utility disk 3x CP/M Extended Utility disk "Wordstar/Mailmerge, Footnote, Epson Bas, MBASIC" disk Microsoft CBASIC/MBASIC disk Wordstar/Mailmerge disk 2x SuperCalc disk Footnote 2.2 disk
NOTE: The included note said that the machine started blowing fuses when Dr. Coahran received it in 1992 and no longer worked, and when I found it there wasn't a fuse installed. I put some paperclips in the fuse... port, and now it boots up and works fine as far as I can tell. (Ted Cooper 06-16-2009)
Serial No: 010132 Received 06-15-2007, originally from David and Stacia Moffett, geologists at WSU (Washington State University). Originally purchased for personal use.
References: Stone's notes from meeting with David Coahran upon receipt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1
