Panasonic RL-H7000W

Posted by musovern on Apr 6th, 2018 in Panasonic, Vintage Computers | 0 comments

Panasonic Model RL-H7000W

This is a luggable IBM-PC compatible system. It tends to offer an all-in-one solution for the perfect 80’s business man. Back in 1983 it was the first Japanese computer completely IBM-PC compatible (hardware & software).

It has a built-in thermal printer (80/132 columns, 8.5” wide) using paper-rolls. This was quite useful where you were on the move, but the weight of the whole system is also quite impressive. It is maybe transportable but surely not portable !
It was also possible to connect a more sophisticated printer through the Parallel port.
There is a 9” CRT green display built-in along with a brightness control.
An interesting feature is that you can also connect the Sr Partner to an external color monitor, thus unleashing the fantastic power of this ultra-modern laptop…err. Maybe not, but you can at least enjoy CGA color graphics (640 x 200 with 4 colors, wow).

Apparently there were several models with different storage configurations : one 5”1/4 disk-drive (360k), two 5”1/4 disk-drives, one disk-drive and one hard-disk (10Mb, 20Mb)…

On the original disk, the MS-DOS ver 2.0A and Basic v2.0 were delivered.

 

MANUFACTURER Panasonic
TYPE Transportable
ORIGIN Japan
YEAR ? 1983
KEYBOARD Full-stroke QWERTY keyboard with numeric keypad and function keys
CPU Intel 8088
SPEED 4.77 Mhz
CO-PROCESSOR optional 8087 mathematic co-processor
RAM 128 kb (512k max.)
ROM 16 kb
TEXT MODES 80 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES CGA graphics :320 x 200 (4 colors), 640 x 200 (2 colors)
COLORS Monochrom (built-in 9 inch CRT green display) and 4 colors (CGA) with external monitor
SOUND Beeper ?
SIZE / WEIGHT 14 kg
I/O PORTS Serial/RS232c, Centronics/Parallel, 1 x ISA expansion slot, RAM expansion slot, RGB monitor ouput
BUILT IN MEDIA Model RL-H7000 : 1 x 360k floppy + optional second floppy
Model RL-H7000W : 2 x 360k floppy drives
OS MS-DOS 2.0A
POWER SUPPLY Built-in PSU. Doesn’t work with any fuse less than 20 Amp !…
PERIPHERALS Hard-disk
PRICE $2495 (USA, november 1983)

 

I have upgraded mine with a XTIDE card with CF card and DOS v6.20

 

Have the Manual and the DOS v2.0 Boot disk

XT-IDE PCB