The main article: Inside the 128

Is there a lap portable computer in your future? Commodore's new LCD portable, introduced in prototype form at the January Consumer Electronics Show, may hold special interest for Commodore 64 and 128 owners.

Originally scheduled for a midsummer entry, the portable is now being held back for release sometime after September, according to Frank Leonardi, Commodore's vice president for marketing. Despite rumors to the contrary, Leonardi confirmed that the portable has not been shelved.

The Commodore LCD has a super fast 80 X 16 liquid-crystal display, 32K RAM, 96K ROM, BASIC 3.6 (a slightly enhanced version of the Plus/4's BASIC), machine language monitor, and, among other features, eight built-in productivity programs (word processor, file manager, spreadsheet, address book, scheduler, calculator, memo pad, and terminal emulator). The portable, which weighs just five and a half pounds and fits in a briefcase, will sell for a reported $600.

During a recent visit to Commodore, the LCD's senior design engineer, Jeff Porter, took the GAZETTE on a tour of the finishing stages of the new machine. Beaming proudly, Porter rattled off a list of features as he showed off another prototype and then dropped in on members of the software design team who demonstrated final modifications:

• The fast LCD display results from a separate custom chip being used solely to handle the screen display. Hence, the 65C102 microprocessor doesn't have to write letters to the screen. "CRTs (cathode ray tubes) use a separate CRT controller chip," says Porter. "We've called this an LCD controller chip. The same principle applies."
• The portable is built to support Commodore 64 peripherals, such as the 1541 disk drive, as well as the new 1571 drive being sold for the 128, and a 3.5-inch Sony-style microdrive planned for possible release later in the year. All Commodore serial peripherals will be compatible.
• The word processor and spreadsheet are truly integrated, using windowing to let you work on either function at the same time via a split-screen display. The spreadsheet also supports independent scrolling in split-screen format, and, according to the spreadsheet engineer, will be faster at moving a thousand cells than Lotus 1-2-3 on an IBM PC.
• Built-in utilities on the main menu allow copying from the internal RAM disk to an external disk drive, or for downloading over the modem or the RS-232 port.
• The internal 32K CMOS static RAM can be expanded to 64K using standard memory chips. Another 64K of RAM can be added externally.
• The BASIC 3.6 includes a command for talking to the built-in 300-baud modem, through an OPEN statement.
• The screen display has a virtual 25-line display (although only 16 lines show at a time). This allows the user to set up the terminal program to emulate a double-screen size, for example.
• The memo pad and calculator each pop up with a keystroke over any application being run, without destroying the program you're using. In addition, the calculator operates in any of several different modes. For instance, while working in BASIC, the user can call up the calculator and use the programmer's mode for hexadecimal, binary, and other computations.
• With some limitations, the BASIC 3.6 is downward compatible with the 128 BASIC 7.0. Although the portable cannot support all of the 128's features, such as color, it should allow the user to run BASIC programs from the 128 without crashing. Instructions the machine can't handle will be ignored by the portable's BASIC. The BASIC also supports graphic commands, such as high resolution boxes, lines, drawing, etc. very similar to the Plus/4 capabilities.
• A new battery-powered thermal transfer printer will be available for the LCD portable. The three-pound, 11.7 X 2.5 X 4.5 inch printer works on AA batteries, and can print unidirectionally in Near Letter Quality (NLQ) mode at 22.5 characters per second (cps) and in draft mode at 45 cps. A test of the new printer produced an excellent NLQ image with all but the coarsest Bond paper.
• The portable, as seen this spring, did not support an external video display. But, Porter said, Commodore's design team for the portable has been considering using the same 80-column display chip found in the 128 to provide that capability. The chip might be housed in a cartridge which would plug into the expansion port, he added.