Amstrad NC100
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The Amstrad NC100 was an A4-size, portable Z80-based computer, released by Amstrad in 1992. It featured 64 KB of RAM and included the Protext word processor, various organiser-like facilities (diary, address book and time manager), a simple calculator and a version of BBC BASIC.
Its screen was small - eight rows by 80 columns - and not backlit, but this allowed the NC100 to run for up to 20 hours on four standard AA cell batteries. There was a RS232 serial port, a parallel port for connecting a printer, and a PCMCIA card socket, by means of which the computer's memory could be expanded up to one megabyte.
An upgraded version, the NC200, appeared in late 1993, featuring a 3.5" floppy disk drive capable of reading/writing MS-DOS-formatted double density disks, 128KB RAM, some extra software - most notably a spreadsheet and three Tetris-like games - and a larger, backlit screen. However, this change required a much greater power consumption - 5 C cell batteries, lasting for only a few hours. The backlight can be manually toggled off to preserve power by pressing Control and Caps Lock at the same time.
An intermediate version, known as the NC150, was also produced, but was available only in Italy and France; its case had the same design as the NC100, but it included the games later seen on the NC200.
