I've gone through a chorus line of portables since then: the Tandy 102, Tandy WP-2, Apple's PowerBook 100, PowerBook Duo 210, PowerBook Duo 230, AlphaSmart Pro and the AlphaSmart 2000. (Jeez, I've *got* to get a life!)

The Z88 (the loaner long since returned) faded from my memory 'til a stray reference in Shop Talk reminded me of my uberGeek status I'd enjoyed at that SALT conference so long ago. I also remembered that the Z88 keyboard was the closest thing to silent I'd ever experienced, and silence is something I definitely prefer as I document corporate shindigs.

I researched the reference, turned up a lead, plunged onto the Web, and found a fella with RSI injuries (retired from the US Postal Service) hawkin' these puppies. Hell, he even upgrades the original 32KB RAM to a whoppin' 512KB. Talk about your technolust, all mixed up with a big serving of curdled nostalgia. I laid my money down.

While I waited for delivery, I was surprised to find the unit mentioned in the July issue of Wired (Wired #6.07: "Inside Project X"). Apparently the principal in Project X, Richard Miller, was deeply involved in (and I quote from Mr. Platt's article): "...developing the world's first laptop, the Z88, at Cambridge Computer, founded by legendary PC pioneer Clive Sinclair. The Z88 contained just four chips: one for RAM, one for ROM, another for the processor, and one that Miller designed for all the other computational functions. It was a tour de force, a masterpiece - and a commercial disaster." Another great product that tanked in the marketplace.

In the fullness of time, my unit arrived. The Z88 is about the size of a piece of paper, less than an inch thick, under two pounds, basic black, powered for 20 hours with 4 AA's. The readout displays 6 rows of 72 itsy bitsy characters of text, with a selection of available menu choices to the left and a pretty realistic micro view of your document to the right. Talk about stone age WYSIWYG! As you type, the Z88 builds a teeny representation of the page you're working on, one pixel for each character typed.

I was disappointed to find a few dings on my new unit. There's a scratch on the front, just below the LCD readout. Even more disturbing to my lock down sensibilities, I could easily pry the computer open from the top left corner, also up by the screen. I was bothered by this 'til I fixed it the same way I fix everything else in my so-called life--with a tasteful strip of wide adhesive shipping tape.

On the software side, this ain't what you'd call a *hot* platform for 3rd party development. I opted for one of the few apps available: a version of MacLink that arrived on an ROM cartridge along with a connecting cable.

The Z88 comes with Pipeworks. This app handles word processing and spreadsheet functions. There's also a collection of pulldown desk accessories (Diary, Calculator, Calender, Clock). A Filer app lets you manage...ah...filing, and there's a basic terminal program, provided you can connect to your target 'puter with an RS-232 cable. Hell, you've even got Basic, for those of you who don't get enough punishment at work and feel a need to learn a dead programming language.

This is such a computer antique in some ways, still brilliant in others. It uses "kill" to erase suspended files. It can take cartridges of 3 flavors: RAM, ROM, EPROM.

The Eprom choice is wild. You can fill up the 32Kb bucket and then it's full. That's it. End of story. You can only record once. The only choice you have, beside real secure storage (measured, according to Cambridge, in years), is that you can wipe out the whole thing with some sort of ultraviolet light device. Then you've got 32kb to play with again. Ultraviolet light--is that cool or what?

I admit, I'm an anglophile and really enjoyed the packaging--the handbook w/its British sensibilities ("you're invited to a beano..."), and the peripheral boxes with their X-files-esque charisma.

Okay, the real drawbacks:

• The keyboard is too sensitive, resulting in far too many typos.
• The screen has no backlighting; good for battery conservation, but hard on the eyes. The characters are way too small.
• No cut & paste
• No spell check
• Having to remember all those goofy commands.
• Having to read an instruction book at all (The Alpha instructions fit on the back of the 'puter.)

Advantages:

• Under two pounds
• Quietest keyboard in the business
• 20 hours of work on 4 AA's.
• Can store 250 pages of text
• Own a piece of computer history. Historical computing is tres chic these days.
• Conversation starter (if this works, you're probably hanging out in *all* the wrong places...)
• You can do spreadsheet functions on it
• You can do basic style adjustments: bold, italic, etc.

OK, so here I dropped close to $300 and a couple months of pokin' around, running down leads, sending out email, etc. Am I happy? Oh yah. This is more than just a piece of history and an artifact from Clive Sinclair's interesting life. I just found out from Mr. Platt that this was the *first* laptop. That earns it a place of honor in my collection, a happy addition indeed.

But would I recommend buying one? Only if you like futzing, learning a lot of goofy keyboard commands and collecting dead computer platforms. The most compelling selling feature for me is the vewy vewy qwiet keyboawd. Your mileage may vary.

- Peter Sugarman [7/20/98]