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The Cambridge Z88 was an A4-size, lightweight, portable Z80-based computer with a built-in combined word processing/ spreadsheet/ database application called Pipedream, along with several other apps/utilities, such as a Z80-version of BBC BASIC. Despite the lightness of the machine, its construction was surprisingly robust, including its membrane/ chiclet keyboard which was both comfortable and almost inaudible.
The computer had 3 memory slots; each of these could be used for RAM expansion, removable mass storage, and proprietary program use. Since the slots used RAM, EPROM and ROM for their data transfer, the transfer speeds were usually very high, but the maximum storage afforded by any one such card was correspondingly low and expensive.
Though the LCD display had only eight lines, the user manual claimed that it was only printing the "center lines" for "convenience" of the user reading the manual. A similar kafkaesque subterfuge extended to the display itself. When displaying a word processorA word processor (also more formally known as a document preparation system is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of viewable or printed material. They are descend function or its native DEC VT52 -type terminal emulatorA terminal emulator terminal application term or tty for short, is a program that emulates a "dumb" video terminal within some other display architecture. A terminal emulator inside a graphical user interface is often called a terminal window . A terminal, it wasted one line to display a square image of an "imaginary" full screen, which supposedly contained a computer screen, of which the current seven lines were merely a limited view.
The Z88 was designed by Sir Clive SinclairSir Clive Marles Sinclair (born July 30, 1940), is a British entrepreneur and inventor of, among other things, the world's first pocket calculator, in [1962] Born near Richmond upon Thames, Sinclair was fascinated from his teenage years by electronics. and released by his company Cambridge Computers in 19871987 is a common year starting on Thursday. Events January January 1 Nunavut's capital changes it name to Iqaluit from Frobisher Bay. January 3 Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. January 4 An Amtrak train (Sir Clive having been bereft of the right to market the computer as the Sinclair Z88 after selling Sinclair Research's computer business to AmstradAmstrad Consumer Electronics plc usually known as Amstrad is a company formed by Sir Alan Michael Sugar in the UK, and based in Brentwood in Essex, England. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar TRADing. In 1984 the company launched the popular in 1986).