The Compaq Portable was the first product in the Compaq portable series to be commercially available under the Compaq brand . It was the first "100%" IBM PC compatible personal computer not manufactured by IBM, and also the first IBM PC compatible portable computer. Compaq derived their company name from the compact nature of the Portable.
Announced in November 1982 and first shipped in January 1983 at a price of US$3,590, this "luggable" suitcase-sized computer was one of the progenitors of the modern laptop; an honor it shares with the CP/M-based Osborne 1 and the MS-DOS-based (but not entirely IBM PC compatible) Hyperion. Its design was influenced by that of the Xerox NoteTaker, a prototype computer developed at Xerox PARC in 1976.
The 28 lb (12.5 kg) of computer that made up the Compaq Portable folded up into a luggable case the size of a portable sewing machine. Compaq sold 53,000 units in the first year and set revenue records for American businesses in its first three years of operation.
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| Compaq LTE branch | ||
| Preceded by NoteTaker |
Compaq Portable | Followed by Compaq Portable II |
| IBM PC branch | ||
| Influenced by IBM PC |
Compaq Portable | Influenced --- |