Sharp Officially Rolls Out Color Portable at Comdex
 
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
LAS VEGAS (Microbytes Daily News Service) --- Sharp Electronics
(Mahwah, NJ) officially announced at Comdex the color laptop it
first demonstrated at last spring's CeBit show in Hannover, West
Germany.
 
The 20-pound computer, now called the Multi-Color 386, features a
14-inch liquid-crystal display and supports full 640 by 480 VGA
color resolution. Standard equipment includes a 20-MHz 386 CPU,
2M bytes of RAM, a 3.5-inch floppy drive, two 16-bit expansion
slots, and standard ports. Priced at a hefty $9395 for a model
with a 19-msec 40-megabyte hard drive (or $9995 with an
80-megabyte hard disk), the system is scheduled to be available
in the first quarter of 1990.
 
Sharp also disclosed its plans for other LCD technologies. The
company says it has now developed film-compensated supertwist
LCDs, which are thinner and lighter than double supertwist and
transmit 30% more light. New "edge-lit" backlighting that uses
only two CCFTs (cold cathode fluorescent tubes) instead of the
usual four will also reduce weight, thickness, and power
consumption, the company says. Sample units incorporating these
technologies will be available in early 1990. In the area of
active matrix color LCDs, Sharp said it will soon deliver 4- and
6-inch thin film transistor LCDs for the OEM marketplace.
 
                              --- Andy Reinhardt
 
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