Compaq and Hyperion - The First IBM Clones

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[MaxGoof]

"16 Shades of Green" sounds like a computer romance novel.

[tyttuut]

In the 80s, "portable" meant you could move it without a forklift.

[LGR]

Having never owned or even used either of these machines before, this was an absolute treat to watch. Nice work once again, David.

And I am in love with that Hyperion machine's design! The disk drive mechanisms alone are fantastic. Shame about its lack of... working.

[AndrosynthNuclear]

In one of my computer labs at university, there just so happened to be a Hyperion sitting amongst a pile of old electronics in the back. Out of curiosity, I plugged it in and threw the switch to see if it was still functional. The light went on, but not the monitor, and I sat there baffled for a good 15 seconds before I realized that there was a rather unsettling amount of smoke pouring out the back of the machine. I frantically unplugged the computer and placed it back. Everybody in class saw what just happened and decided to pretend as if nothing happened. Good memory.

[obsoletegeek]

Still seeing a chiropractor after lugging that entire 5150 setup around.

[Jedward]

I remember travelling with a Compaq like that for my job in the mid-80s. Lugging that heavy thing on the NYC subway system and stowing it in overhead baggage on airplanes. Half of the time the bus cards would get loose and I would open it up and re-seat them. Hard to believe that was considered portable, but back then we were on The Cutting Edge.

Before that, I had a job using an Osborne. Wordstar and Lotus 1-2-3 (I think) and dBase were the main apps we used. We cranked out hefty business analyses with these simple tools, although when WYSIWYG came into being, that saved a lot of waste paper.

[winfielddoner]

The Compaq portable was the first pic my employer handed me and asked me to program product labels for our shipping Dept. From scratch in gwbasic including custom characters. I only had a beginner's understanding of basic at the time. This was in addition to my regular job as a machine operator at the time. Great video, model I used had dual floppies, ah memories!!

[VernonBalbert]

I worked in the back room of a couple of computer stores configuring IBMs and Compaqs for customers. I can attest to the fact that it's possible to open the Compaq without tools. You would put the front of the computer against your belly, position your fingers on the back of the top of the case and press your fingers where the tabs were located and it would release and you could pull it up and towards you. You had to have strong fingers for this as well as be careful that when it released you didn't jerk it back and hit yourself with the lid. I hated working on these because a lot of customers would order the math coprocessor which was located on the motherboard under where the hard drive is located on your system. You'd have to completely pull the motherboard to get access to it and that involved a lot of knuckle-scraping. But they were good machines and we sold a lot of them.

I personally have a Compaq Deskpro (the original XT class version) with a pair of hard drives that, unfortunately, don't work and I'm looking to get a flash reader for it. Any suggestions for what to use?

[rkornilo]

It has to be such a gratifying feeling to load your own game onto one of these relics and watch it go. :-)

[threadripper]

Never saw a Hyperion in the wild, but I did install literally hundreds of hard drives in Compaq portables in the mid-1980s. Ahh, the memories...

[bitwize]

The Hyperion doesn't get enough love. It beat the Compaq to market, making it the first IBM compatible sold, a point of pride to the Canadians. Christine McGlade, star of You Can't Do That On Television, carried a Hyperion computer back and forth on her motorcycle between her home and the TV soundstage, as by that time she had already begun her transition from an actress to writing and producing.

[NeilInOxford]

My backslash is between the left shift key and Z key to this day. In the UK, that's where it normally is.

[TailRecursion]

How many times did it take to say "Pack and unpack the Compaq" without getting tongue-twisted?

[beetlejuice]

10 PRINT "8 Bit-Guy Comes through with another winning Video"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

Thought I'd write a really basic programme...

[MrCharlieBros]

Such a shame the Hyperion was faulty, it looks so pretty, minimalistic and modern, I love it!

[FarrellMcGovern]

Most of the work on the Hyperion was done here in Ottawa. I have friends who worked at Dynalogic, and one of them was the lead programming for H-DOS. I actually saw the source code for it! He had a print-out of it...and back then that was the Royal Jewels of the PC world!. As you said, they had production problems...they had a *HUGE* number of pre-orders for the Hyperion based on their announcement at COMDEX...millions of dollars, but as manufacturing delays mounted, people started cancelling their orders to buy a Compaq. As they had needed that money to ramp up production, there were caught in a bind. It was at this point that Bytec came along and made Dynalogic a deal it couldn't refuse due to the loss of the pre-order money they were counting on for manufacturing...

Bonus content: Old Joke from the day...
Q: How do you tell if a person is a Compaq user?
A: One arm is longer than the other! (a reference to the weight of the "portable")

[banclishor]

I love the 8-bit guy. He just does so many cool things

[bkkorner]

I had both of those Compaqs, the dual-floppy one and the floppy with the hard drive! Loved them!

[LMacNeill]

Ahh, the good old days when you could put a handle on a 30-pound piece of equipment and call it "portable." 😂

[mymomsaysimcool]

To this day, I can still remember an insurance agent coming to our house and doing my parent’s insurance policy on a luggable.