The "Micral" Portal, the first laptop?
The Micral Portal is more or less the first portable computer. It is true, I read it on the wikipedia page, and so can you.
It is an extremely rare machine, no museum has one, only 2 exists in private collections, and no museum has any.
From time to time, there is an auction for that incredibely important machine, with prices in the $10K range which, when we think about it, is really cheap. After all, the Micral N sold for over $50K.
Wikipedia screenshot:
Only two exist in private collections! #
So, I happen to have a Portal, although I did not pay $10K for it. It is, of course, my favorite computer.
However, we can admit that if only 3 or 6 or even 20 exist, it is still an extraordinary rare machine and fundamental machine. The first portable computer before the Osborne 1! Presented in October 1980! Several months before its more successful brother!
Wait a minute, this early portable computer was released in September 1980?
I wonder if there have been any portable computers before...
Like the MCM/70, in 1974:
Or the IBM 5100, in 1975:
Of course the PARC couldn't be left off either and had a early Osborne-like portable computer in 1978:
Or the 1978 Scrib:
We can also summon the whole HP 9800 series that started in 1971 and lasted until the late 70s. While the first one, the 9830A, was not really portable, the HP9825B from 1978 definitely was.
In 1979 we got the Findex, with 6 lines of 40 characters!
Or the beautiful HP 85, in January 1980.
And my first computer, the Sharp PC-1211 was released in 1980, before the Portal.
Ok, so it seems that there may be some exaggerated claims in the wikipedia article about the Micral Portal...
Portal CCMC? #
This is the computer label:
What, it is not a Micral Portal? No, it is not, but the wiki article is careful to entertain the confusion. It was designed and built by Réalisation d'Études Électroniques, aka R2E, as a computer for a large company doing accounting. It happens that R2E also created the Micral line of computers, so people like to associate the two. It did run the same operating system as the Micral computers, Prologue. There was also a Micral V which actually was the portable Micral. In 1978.
So, that was my rant. There is a lot of bullshit around old computers, "the first this", or "the first that". Sometimes the pollution of information around is coming from "bad actors" that are trying to pump up the value of some auction. Sometimes it just fanboyism, and sometime it is just repeating false information without checking -- or using dubious sources, like old marketing material.
The portal is a very interesting machine, and a nice piece of history. @Altomare helped putting mine back together, you can read about the internals of the machine herein this git repository.