General Information

Serial #

1711AE4B0391

Part Number

1

Total Parts

2

AKA

N/A

Patents

N/A

General Description

Synthetic casing, parts/ Metal parts, hardware/ Glass monitor screen covering

Dimensions

Note: These reflect the general size for storage and are not necessarily representative of the object's true dimensions.

Length

44.4 cm

Width

18.0 cm

Height

39.5 cm

Thickness

N/A

Weight

N/A

Diameter

N/A

Volume

N/A

Lexicon

Group

Computing Technology

Category

Digital computing devices

Sub-Category

N/A

Manufacturer

AKA

Compaq

Country

United States of America

State/Province

Unknown

City

Unknown

Context

Country

Canada

State/Province

Unknown

Period

circa 1986+

Canada

A piece of equipment used at the David Dunlap Observatory at the University of Toronto, one of Canada's most important astronomical observatories. The David Dunlap Observatory opened in 1935 as the result of a bequest from the wife of David Dunlap. The telescope was a 74 inch (188 cm) reflector built by Grubb Parsons of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England. The 74 inch was then the largest telescope in Canada (surpassing the 72 inch telescope of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria) and became the second largest in the world after the 100 inch Hooker Telescope of the Mt. Wilson Observatory outside Los Angeles. DDO's reputation grew and following WWII, it began to graduate most of the astronomers produced in Canada with University of Western Ontario far behind. Beginning in the 1960s a number of other astronomy departments were created but UofT/DDO held its place, a position it probably still holds. The DDO had a good technical staff which gave them an advantage and, with most of the 1940s to early 1970s top astronomers coming from UofT, grants from NRC and then ENSERC were almost guaranteed and allowed UofT's top astronomers -- Hogg, van den Berg, Fernie, Bolton, Kamper, Martin, etc. to acquire or build some of the best equipment available in university observatories. For optical observatories, only the DAO had technical staff and budgets that surpassed those of DDO. In 2007, citing increasing light pollution, the University of Toronto announced plans to sell the Observatory property. In June 2008, it was sold to Corsica Development Inc., a subsidiary of Metrus Development Inc. and the Observatory was closed. In 2009 the Observatory buildings and 80% of the site were designated a cultural heritage landscape. Also in 2009 Corsica and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto Centre announced an agreement allowing the RASC to provide public education and outreach programs at the observatory, and to operate the 188 cm telescope.

Function

A programmable machine that accepts, processes and displays data, and is portable enabling it to be useable anywhere.

Technical

A computer made in the mid-1980s and probably used with an astronomical measuring engine, the Perkin-Elmer PDS machine. This was a device for digitally measuring photographs, used to measure both stellar and galactic spectra as well as direct images of the sky taken with the DDOs 74 inch telescope and plates acquired by Sidney Van de Burgh at the 48 inch Mt. Palomar Schmidt telescope. The original Compaq Portable was introduced in 1983 and was the first ‘100%’ IBM PC compatible portable computer. It was developed by reverse engineering IBM’s BIOS and creating an original BIOS which performed the same functions. The Compaq Portable II was released in 1986 and was a smaller and lighter upgrade of the Portable I, with a faster CPU, and an integrated hard drive data storage system. Four models of the Portable II were produced: Model 1 - $3499 - 256K RAM, 1 floppy drive; Model 2 - $3599 - 256K RAM, 2 floppy drives; Model 3 - $4799 - 640K RAM, 1 floppy drive, 1 10Meg hard drive; Model 4 - $4999 - 640K RAM, 1 floppy drive, 1 20Meg hard drive. This is an example of the Model 2 Portable II which had 256 K RAM and two 5.25 inch floppy disk drives. The Portable II’s successor, the Compaq Portable III was released in 1987. Specifications for the Portable II include: Announced: February 1986/ Price: US$3499 - $4999/ Weight: 26 pounds/ CPU: Intel 80286 @ 6 or 8MHz/ RAM: 256K/ Storage: Two 5.25-inch disk drives, 10Meg or 20Meg hard drive; Display: internal 9-inch monitor, monochrome, 80 X 25 text; Ports: 1 parallel, 1 serial, 1 CGA.; OS: MS-DOS 3.2.

Area Notes

Unknown

Details

Markings

White labels in interior compartment read ‘COMPAQ ® Computer Corporation/ Made in U.S.A. Model: 2650’with patent numbers and ‘COMPAQ ® Computer Corporation Model: 2650/ Made in U.S.A./ Hz 60/ V 120/ A 3’/ Bar code label inside end compartment reads ‘1711AE4B0391’/ Brown synthetic plate with multicoloured stripe and raised metallic letters reading ‘COMPAQ/ PORTABLE II’ on two sides of exterior/ Brown synthetic plate with multicoloured stripe and raised metallic letters reading ‘COMPAQ’ on keyboard and disk drive front/ Label on disk drive door reads ‘Type 2’

Missing

Appears complete

Finish

Textured buff casing/ Brown handle with plated metal mount/ Textured grey monitor and disk drive casing with grey screen/ Textured grey keyboard with ivory, beige and off-white keys/ Grey keyboard cable

Decoration

N/A