From: cabo@cs.tu-berlin.de (Carsten Bormann)
Subject: REVIEW: sub-notebook/gorilla-palmtop: A5-PC == Bicom B260i
Organization: Technical University of Berlin, Germany
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 19:07:54 GMT

Since full-size, detailed reviews have been rather rare in this
newsgroup lately, I thought I might post a review of my pretty new (I
had it for two weeks now) sub-notebook.

As the subject computer is only slightly larger than ISO A5 size, i.e.
much smaller than a normal notebook, and smaller in at least one
dimension from things many people call palmtops, I'm posting this to
both comp.sys.laptops and comp.sys.palmtops.

Here's the scoop:

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Name:
BIOS Info: ABC Computer Co., Ltd; Product name: Bicom B260i
Sold in Germany by: Vobis, Product name: Highscreen A5-PC

Pluses:
1kg, 223x164x31 mm3 (8.8x6.4x1.2 in3, not much larger than a Portfolio).
Light (300 g? I don't have a scale here) and small (146x72x42) power
adapter (happens to power my HP 95LX nicely, too), runs from 100 V to
240 V (tested on 230 V only).
Full size serial and parallel interface (no strange cables add to
traveling weight), lightweight laplink cable supplied.
60 MB (15 ms!), 2 MB (1 MB + 640 KB, actually; shadow RAM seems inaccessible).
Type II PCMCIA 2.0 slot (not tested).
3.5" floppy drive dockable (not tested, runs on main batteries or its own).
Works on five standard AA type cells (alkaline, NiCd, NiH).
The supplied NiH Batteries actually work for two to three hours (80
minutes with all power management disabled; alkaline not tested).
Power management parameters can be changed without rebooting (but for
most of the timeouts, you can only enable/disable them, not set their
values, and disk timeout is at 13 seconds!).
Emergency boot from ROM in case you have damaged config.sys (very nice,
saved me once already)
Very quiet keyboard and disk (but bell rather loud).
Nice matte grey finish (comparable to, but nicer than, that of the
PortFolio), sporty violet decor (opening latch, on/off switch, F-key
legend).

Minuses:
No resume mode (seems to use DRAM), but comes up in 10 seconds.
286 LX processor only (no Windows enhanced mode or GNU emacs).
CGA+ 640x400 only (but runs Windows 3.1 standard mode fine); 
not backlit (but very readable even in difficult lighting, 
black on light grey, contrast settable from keyboard).
Keys rather small (OK for me, but impossible to touch-type for my
wife); key spacing is at 14.9 mm (instead of normal 19 mm).
64 actual keys (F-keys, INS, BREAK, NUMLK, etc. via FN only; 102nd key only
via FN-ALT); Stupid German key layout (DEL to the left of CAPLOCK to the
left of A, FN to the left of shift to the left of Z/Y).
The Arrow keys are <^v>, not inverted T (and Home/End/PgUp/PgDn require FN).
KEYB US gives you German layout (!?) with a few added bugs, so I'm using
KEYB UK (plus a small TSR to move "=+" to the right of "-_"; this key
generates the scan code for "\|"!).
2-key rollover only (hard to type ^X^C in emacs).
The keyboard processing seems to cause enormous serial outages, in
particular the key release and the shift keys (up to about a dozen
characters have been lost at 19200 bit/s).
No video out;
no docking station (but maybe we'll see a PCMCIA docking station?).
The port and battery covers are losable, flimsy, hard to remove without
breaking your fingernails, sometimes come off unwantedly (despite the 
ridiculous "locks" on the things).   I don't expect them to last long.
No hard cover (just the spring loaded job) on the PCMCIA slot, so be
careful with loose change.
Stupid power alarm (too early, too long, too loud); 
pop-up battery indicator not very accurate (too coarse for NiH).
Power light is on while charging with computer on or off (confusing).
Sub-standard charger: does not sense battery full, so batteries must be
removed for longer AC-based sessions (and they'll get rather hot after
charging too long, potentially damaging the LCD if notebook closed); 
10 h charge time nominal (seems slightly faster actually);
but: charges always, charging not switched off while computer is on.
Does not ride through AC power failures on battery power (plugging in AC
adapter seems to physically switch off battery power to the computer).
Does not come with bag (you'll toss it in your regular bag/case, anyway).

Questionable:
DR-DOS 6.0 in ROM (is this a blessing or a curse?)
Stupid ROM based PIM tools accessible via a hot key that is wasted
otherwise (Calculator, including currency conversions with settable
exchange rates with respect to dollar only, Alarm Clock/World Clock,
Scheduler, Telephone book, Memo editor); don't interface to the DOS
world (seem to live out of SRAM, can't backup).
Firmware password can be set to disable unallowed use (manual warns
that computer becomes useless if password is forgotten).

Price:
DM 2599 including DR-DOS 6.0, MS-Windows 3.1, PC-Tools 7.1, "Ways for
Windows" (a rather questionable correct-spelling-as-you-type and text
database Windows accessory).
While this is about 1850 US-dollars with the current exchange rate
(and rising :-), the price is comparable to the cheapest (40 MB/1 MB)
386sx notebooks that can be bought in Germany.
Dockable 3.5" floppy drive DM 249.

Measurements:
Disk transfers at 308 or 525-528 KB/s, depending on measurement program.
Average seek time repeatably at 14.6 to 14.8 ms, 2.3 to 2.4 track-to-track.
Landmark speed around 21.6 MHz (1.3 MHz in 1 MHz doze mode).
Using a device that would have made Rube Goldberg proud, I measured:
240 mA at full standby mode (LCD, disk off, CPU slow).
660 mA at disk off, all other power management disabled.
1010 mA with disk on and *heavy* seeking. 1370 mA disk startup current.
While this was hard to measure with my setup, disk running to not running
seems to make 70 mA of difference (wow, idle disk only uses 0.5 Watts!).
Within Microemacs, fast typing consumes about 350 to 450 mA (disk off).
Within Windows Write (in standard mode), 600 to 700 mA (the Windows
power utility is rather strange, so I'm not quite sure what I selected).
Charging current 200 mA (should charge the 1200mAh NiH batteries in
about 8.4 hours, which meshes with my experience).
Fully charged battery is up to about 7.4 V, goes down to about 6 V (?)
before power alarm starts to sound.
My run time measurements together with the above current measurements
indicate that the full 1200 mAh capacity of the NiH batteries may not be
reached.
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Overall: I still like it after two weeks of use (and even despite the
fact that I generally consider the things Vobis sells a lot of junk).
Pretty much the machine I would have wanted to buy in 1988 when I
bought my first Toshiba laptop.  Not quite a replacement for the
desktop UNIX machine, certainly, but a nice little computer you can
carry *everywhere* you are going with anything that resembles a bag.

If you know anything I have not mentioned about the machine, please
mail me (e.g., who's ABC Computer Co., Ltd?).
If you know anything detailed about any other machine, please don't
hesitate to post a similarly full-size review.

Gruesse, Carsten