Portables and luggables: Ian Scales weighs up the pros and cons of the new Commodore and Olivetti

Commodore's portable version of the C64 has been awaited with interest by Commodore enthusiasts for some months. The SX64 owes much to the trend-setting Osborne portable. More interestingly, it slots into the noticeable price gap in the current micro line-up - the market region between £500 and £1,000 for a working disk system. At £700 the SX should prove a popular choice for people who want a reasonably transportable computer to perform a specific set of tasks. Commodore obviously thinks that word processing will be a firm favourite - the Easywriter program is bundled in the price - as it presently is with the C64.

In this corner, the Olivetti M10, weighing in at four pounds three ounces. In the opposite corner, the SX64 at 25 pounds. An unfair fight? Like pitting Bruce Lee against Frank Bruno?

Not really, for both machines are likely to appeal to similar users. They simply go to meet a similar set of needs - portable word processing seems to be the target application for both systems. Unlike the luggables such as the Commodore SX, which are attempts to squeeze a conventional disk-based micro into a carriable configuration, the M10 is devoted to handheld portability. It's a convenience computer with CMOS non-volatile RAM. Instead of having to find a desk and power socket and install a disk, all you do is turn it on and you have instant access to its features. So you can use it on the train, in bed, in fact, anywhere under the sun and over the weekend.

To get a computer down to around four pounds obviously means cutting a few corners.

The most fruitful way of shedding weight and bulk is to get rid of the cathode ray tube which contribues a lot to both. The M10 uses a flat liquid crystal display instead. This feature also means that the screen is small (just eight lines by 40 characters). Another heavy component is the disk drive(s). This has been replaced by the non-volatile memory.

Say the word Olivetti and chance are you'll be thinking typewriter. However, as anyone who notices advertisements on television will tell you, Olivetti also sells a business micro called the M20 - which is faster than all the other 16-bit micros (whatever that means!).

On the M20 Olivetti decided to incorporate Zilog's Z8000 processor - a 'true' 16-bit micro which can directly address up to one megabyte - instead of the industry's firm favourite, the Intel 8088.

When Olivetti extended its range of micros with the portable M10 it decided to make it yet another version of the Japanese-manufactured Kyocra system which has already appeared in PCN as the Tandy Model 100 (July 7 to 13) and the NEC PC-8201A (Oct 27 to Nov 2).

Olivetti's most obvious influence on the basic design is a whiff of Italian styling and a tiltable screen. The rest of the micro's features are the same as its siblings.

A minor problem with the Tandy and NEC computers is the angle you end up finding yourself at looking into the screen. With the light playing over it from the wrong angle, it is impossible to see what's going on - users tend to resort to cigarette packets and so on to jack the thing up. It's either that, or sit it on your knee and hunch over the machine.

Olivetti has mounted the eight rows of forty characters liquid crystal display on a sprung hinge so that it can be tilted up by the user.

The machine loses points in other areas however. For instance, the keyboard layout has features designed to frustrate the average computer keyboard user. The '|' can unaccountably appear when you're trying to execute a shifted character. The Olivetti also utilities the fiddly little function keys like the Tandy's which are particularly annoying when you're attempting to send the cursor about. But these are minor quibbles. Once the idiosyncracies are mastered, the keyboard is very pleasing to use.

The rear of the machine has a row of ports - bar code reader, tape recorder socket, parallel and serial interface ports. You can also run the system off a mains power supply (this will also beef up rechargeable batteries - worth the extra cost if you use the machine often).

Under various flaps there are extra sockets for RAM and ROM chips. It is possible to add an extra 32K of ROM while the CMOS RAM can be increased in 8K increments to 32K. A bus extension socket appears to promise future goodies.

Like its siblings, the M10 has a built-in word processing program, Microsoft Basic, a time scheduler and communications utilities. A version of the M10 with built-in modem will also be available.

The M10 is all about instant access to whatever information you have inside. The price you pay for this is capacity. Also, it will be some time before there is a great variety of applications software available.

There are two portable power sources - the RAM runs from very low charge Ni-Cd rechargeable batteries. The manual says these should last between 8 and 30 days if the computer is not used (and hence the batteries remain uncharged) and says it's advisable to use it every couple of days. The only data loss I experienced was when I inadvertently poured a cup of coffee down the keyboard. Once the system had dried out, it performed perfectly.

The four conventional penlight batteries power the eight-line screen for about 20 hours. This will also switch off if it's left without any keyboard depressions for about 5 minutes.

This means all you need do is turn the computer on, balance it on your lap and go - there is no power plug to find, no disks to manipulate and no operating systems or software to boot up.

You start with a directory of files and programs: simply position the cursor over the appropriate file or program name, depress the Return key and you're off.

Judged simply as a computer using all the standard ways of benchmarking and evaluation the Olivettit M10 doesn't stand up well.

But these rules simply don't apply because the system is so totally convenient - saving time and money is what computers are all about after all.

Packaging is irrelevant with this machine - it comes in the standard cardboard box, but as it's a portable you'd best get rid of the packaging in the shop. Lugging it about by the handle will be an experience in itself, but we'll come to such weighty matters later.

The SX is basically a conventional Commodore 64 (see PCN issues 24, 25 and 26 where the Micropaedia is devoted to the machine's features) and one of its standard 5.25" disk drives squeezed into a heavy-duty carrying case with a five inch colour monitor plus power supply.

How much weight the case contributes to the package is difficult to say but there's none of your thin plastic feel to this machine - it's rugged and should stand the inevitable knocks quite well.

The keyboard fits over the business end of the computer, enclosing the screen, drive and storage area. This last item is strange - it's a hole where a second disk drive should be. Though dubbed a storage area and obviously floppy disk size, the nasty magnetic field generated by the working disc drive prevents you using it as such.

The base of the SX (the bit closest to the ground when you're carrying it about) has an arrangement of cooling fins which double as a strong base for resting it, protecting the line of I/O ports which are inset far enough to be out of contact. The ports themselves consist of two joystick sockets, a video port for an external monitor, the Commodore serial port, user port and the power socket.

The top of the machine (when it's set up for work) features a cartridge port protected by a spring-loaded flap. The man-sized carry handle doubles as an adjustable foot to prop the computer up on the work surface at a right angle.

The keyboard connects via a short cable to the SX's belly. The Commodore's function keys are sensibly arranged down the right-hand side. The keyboard feels good, although some may find the mechanisms a little springy.

The first thing you notice about the SX is the inadequacy of the screen. What we have here is a five inch colour monitor. At the best of times, colour monitors like these are only just adequate as screen displayed; when you shrink them down to five inches and squeeze 40 characters across a line you're asking for trouble. To get readable text from the system you have to limit your background/foreground to something like white against grey.

So why not have a monochrome monitor? "Ah," you say. "But this is a Commodore 64 and it's designed to be a colour computer."

And you'd be right, but then you would expect a little consistency. The machine does have a video port so Commodore obviously expects the user to want to play games or do display-oriented tasks like spreadsheet calculations on a big screen. The machine doesn't have a cassette port, so tape-based software is out of the question. You can, however, use cartridges.

It might have made more sense if Commodore had opted for an on-board monochrome display which gives a steady, readable picture (if a bit boring) and left the colour for an external monitor.

Another disappointment was the disk drive. This system is supposed to be a professional tool and yet it's like watching paint dry - waiting at the screen as the drive sends data bit by bit down its serial interface to the computer.

For the Commodore enthusiast, of course, none of this matters much. They know exactly what they're getting - except for the weight.

This brings me to my favourite complaint. Unless you have legs for arms you're going to find the going touch - mind you, if you've been getting lots of sand in your face lately this could be just what the mail order ordered.

You have to take the micro out of computer when you're taking business portable. To be fair to Commodore though, the SX is among the welter weights - although I didn't have a chance to weigh it properly it is supposed to be around 23 pounds. Some portables go up and beyond 30. Whatever it is, it's too heavy to be portable in the way that you may expect from advertisements of fresh faced executives happily boarding planes and hopping into taxis as if their arms weren't falling off.

In the course of testing the SX it made the computer commuter's journey home with me and back to the office. It's not to bad over a short distance, but walk with it any further than 200 yards and you'll be changing arms to stay the course. The SX is one of the lesser sinners in this regard, but the paying public must be warned that their idea of portable and a computer manufacturer's may be two entirely different things.

Bundled with the SX is the Easywriter word processing system. Easywriter is a good package - it has all the features we've come to expect from something which purports to be full-featured. Plenty of menus, block moves, flexible formatting and so forth. But again, it was blighted by the small screen. It wasn't really a pleasure to work with.

The Commodore SX64 and the Olivetti M10 can serve as examples of two broad product trends. Both claim to offer realistic portable computing, but the philosophies of the two approaches are very different.

Although it's early days yet, it seems likely that the Kyocera-type machines (we can include the Epson HX20 in this category as well) will attract sedentary storage systems. The idea would be that you keep the heavy disk drives and full-size monitor at home or in the office. You then use the storage facilities as a sort of 'home base' for keeping not immediately needed files and records, downloading what you accumulate while out and about. The Olivetti is also seen as an adjunct to upmarket micros in big and medium businesses.

On the other hand there are definite advantages to the Commodore solution. The SX is an attempt to make desktop technology moveable. This way the user has access to the full features of the desktop micro: unlimited storage and well-tried applications packages, and usually at a good price as well.

The Osborne 1 was the trend-setter here - bundling a well-proved range of CP/M software with the basic price of the machine and offering a very reasonable hardware package to boot.

Commodore has taken the same route with its own system exploiting a now well-proved and supported system and making it portable. For true portability the book-sized systems are undoubtedly the way.

The luggables, on the other hand, can be moved about but hardly provide any sort of portable solution - remember that a battery pack will make them heavier still. The Commodore SX makes a nice bundled package - to buy, not to carry.

The Tandy Model 100 made its appearance in July 1983 here in the UK. The machine seems to have created something of a stir in the industry. Indeed, it seemed a winner at first glance. It consists of a full-sized typewriter keyboard on a book-sized machine with its own flat screen display, non-volatile memory and sockets and ports sprouting out all over the place.

Not only was it a nice piece of hardware, but there was a set of built-in programs in ROM to enable you to write letters, schedule yourself, run a small database - all without inserting a disk or fumbling for a power socket.

Tandy's big selling point is always sales and service, and when you're talking portable, this is an even bigger advantage. On your frequent visits to the US your suddenly faulty machine need only be dropped into a handy Radio Shack to have the relevant repairs.

Tandy is selling a lot of Model 100s, especially in the US where enthusiasm for portables is such that there are already dedicated portable computer magazines.

Like the Olivetti, the Tandy has annoyingly fiddly little cursor keys. It is expandable to only 32K of RAM. The disk drives are promised in a box together with a conventional display facility. On the plus side it does possess a good range of built-in graphics characters.

The Tandy shares with the Olivetti the disappointing duplications of the Address and Schedule programs. These enable you to create little files and search them for keywords and so on. The problem is they seem to be duplicate programs. Still, by duplicating you effectively speed up and make the functions of both more efficient since the computer would have to search through the combined files.

The NEC PC-8201A followed closely on the Tandy's heels; it was also based on the Kyocera design. Unlike Tandy, NEC seems to view its product as an 'open', multi-purpose system capable of incorporating disk drives and growing up into a 'total solution' in its own right.

The NEC scores over the Tandy in two important respects - it's cheaper and it has a 'bank switching' facility to run removable CMOS RAM cartridges. The same switching (it has 32K of ROM) enables you to expand it to 64K inside the machine.

These CMOS cartridges are wonderful things; you simply plug them into the side of the machine and use a paging command to switch banks and gain access to the files stored there. You can transfer files across the banks or swap the modules with other users. The only problem is the price tag; the cartridges cost around £200 each.

This is because the non-volatile memory used in them is still fairly expensive - when it comes down in price this sort of storage solution is bound to become very popular with a wide range of systems.

Thought and effort has been put into the keyboard which has an attractive array of cursor control keys and two of the function keys are also full-sized. The NEC does without the embedded numeric keypad.

It also doesn't support the range of built-in graphics characters. Instead it gives you the ability to redefine characters from 131 to 255 with a special character redefinition program which comes as part of the Personal Application kit.

All in all, NEC seems to have put more of its heart into its product: programs are included in ROM - the text editor and telecom communications utility. It also have a different, and some would say nicer, version of Microsoft Basic.