The Osborne 1 is one of the first portable computers but needs external power source. Its name comes from Adam Osborne, the man who made this computer a reality (not quite true, see end of the text).
It has a very small built-in screen (8.75 x 6.6 cm, which can display 128 columns!!) and weighs more than 10 Kg.
The first models couldn't display more than 52 columns by line, so to access to the 76 other columns, the user had to scroll among the screen thanks to the cursor keys.
It works under CP/M and was sold with Digital Research CBASIC (compiled BASIC), SuperCalc (spreadsheet), WordStar (word processor), MailMerge (mailing) and Microsoft's MBasic (MBasic source code was 100% upwards compatible with IBM PC's BASICA, source code only).
This machine would be succeeded in 1983 by the Osborne Executive, which featured a larger screen (YAHOO!) and lower-profile disk drives.
Despite its interesting characteristics, Osborne Computer Corporation suffered the competition of the first IBM PC compatibles and went bankrupt in 1983. One casualty was a planned portable computer called the Osborne PC (which, interestingly, was an MS-DOS clone). It was never released (even though prototypes exist).
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
My name is Michael Osborne { no relationship } and I am a graphic designer. I designed the Osborne Computer logo in 1980 at my first job out of school. Of course, we didn''t even have computers at the time. I have had my own design firm now for 30 years: www.modsf.com So amazing to see this after all this time!
I use to sell and repair Osborne, Commodore pets and North Stars. The killer problem with the Osborne and KayPros was that they would fail to boot. Their was a hard lesson learned here about EMI. In short because the switching power supply was located behind the floppy disk drive, it would couple EM Interference into the pickup heads on the floppy. This caused bad faulty data sector reads and therefore it would fail to boot C/PM. If you were to take it apart and move the floppy drive away from the chassis it would boot C/PM just fine
I have serial number 1000 Osborne 1. I bought it in Toledo Ohio. It fit under the seat in an airplane and I remember plugging it in at Ohare and doing a little computing. First time I every saw that with a computer.
Wednesday 27th May 2020
John Eckert (Brookings, Oregon)
NAME
OSBORNE 1
MANUFACTURER
Osborne Corp.
TYPE
Transportable
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1981
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
Full-stroke keyboard with separated numeric keypad
CPU
Zilog Z80 A
SPEED
4 MHz
RAM
64 KB
ROM
4 KB
TEXT MODES
52 / 80 / 104 char. x 24 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
Only graphic characters
COLORS
Monochrome
SOUND
Beeper
SIZE / WEIGHT
51(W) x 32,5 (D) x 22,5(H) cm. Weight : 10,2 Kg.
I/O PORTS
RS232, IEEE 488, Modem port, Composite Video
BUILT IN MEDIA
2 x 5.25'' FDD
OS
CP/M
POWER SUPPLY
Built-in power supply unit
PERIPHERALS
Supplied with : CBasic, WordStar, SuperCalc, MailMerge, DBase II
