Data General Advert - May 1985

Here's another one of those adverts where it's tempting to question whether the claims made had ever actually been tested in the real world.

It's for Data General's One - the 4.5kg portable launched in 1984 and considered the first battery-powered laptop that was fully compatible with IBM's PC^[1].

It appeared to be aimed more at the executive than the working proletariat, given the advert's assertion that "hours spent being driven between meetings" could now become valuable working time.

The One used the CMOS version of Intel's 8086, which was clocked slightly slower than the already-slow 4.77MHz of the IBM PC.

It was also an early adopter of the new 3½" floppy disk format, meaning that it didn't actually sell that well, as most software available at the time shipped on 5¼" floppies.

However, the company did offer a couple of solutions to this issue, the first of which was an external 5¼" floppy drive from which it was possible to copy over most - but not all - software.

It was also working with software companies to get them to offer their programs on 3½" disks.

When the One launched in the US towards the end of 1984, several well-known packages were already available in the new format including WordStar, dBase II, Microsoft's Multiplan, Lotus 1-2-3 and - crucially for the business market it was aimed at - Sublogic's Flight Simulator II^[2].

The single-floppy version of the One, which launched in the UK at the beginning of 1985, retailed for £2,490 plus VAT, which is about £12,500 in 2026.