Mitsubishi’s Apricot AL C: only 2.2-pounds and none of the fat
Mitsubishi’s Apricot AL C: only 2.2-pounds and none of the fat
There’s a bit of a glitch on the Japanese front but Mitsubishi is glitchier than most, we would suspect. Last week it closed down its facility in Durham (not County Durham, dear readers) and 200 people got axed there. According to a carefully pre-released statement, that was because of a decline in the semiconductor market. Decline? What decline? It’s been evident for a little while that while companies like Mitsubishi are a little bit in trouble, the US manufacturers are wafering in the facilities.
Mitubishi just released their new Apricot AL C series. And in a refreshing fit of marketing sobriety, chose to tag the two models which comprise the series with the names “lightweight” and “regular.” Unfortunately, the delirium tremens must have kicked in all lickity-split like since they forgot to make mention of the screen size. So while we’d like to compare the 1.2GHz Pentium M 753 totin’ AL C Lightweight (as in 2.2-pounds light) packin’ a 20GB disk and 256MB of RAM against other ultra-light laptops…well, we just can’t. However, if you want to pixel-count using that 3.5-inch floppy as a reference point then by all means, give us a holla-back with your results.
So, is this the trade war to end all trade wars? We think not, here at The Register. Despite all rumours to the contrary, there’s still all to play for in the semiconductor market (See the Semiconductor Industry Association’s site for a breakdown). In fact, best predictions are that the market is growing like billy-o, so it would only be fools that rushed in where angels feared to tread. Nevertheless, analysts could perhaps ask whether Mitsubishi’s stake in Apricot was a wise move a few years back and also whether it was a terribly good thing for Fujitsu to buy ICL, notwithstanding the effect Fin-Fin has had on the market.
There is no room in the computer business for a company which stands still. Even while the F range was being launched, and extensions to it planned, work began on a new, top-of-the- range machine, code named Candyfloss. The project was aimed at producing a machine which would compete with the top-range IBM PC, the PC AT. In true Apricot fashion, it was not enough to produce a similar machine at a similar price; Candyfloss had to be smaller, more powerful, offer more facilities and cost less.
The result is the oddly-named XEN, the machine announced in October 1985. This provides considerably more power, features and facilities in a system which is both smaller and cheaper than the IBM AT.
The Apricot family is now arranged in four groups: Apricot Gateway, Apricot Collection, Apricot Professional and Apri- cot Networks. In the following breakdown of the range, we describe each of the machines and give its full specification together with comments on its suitability for various types of work.