The Thorn EMI Liberator was a

laptop A laptop computer or notebook computer, also known as a laptop or notebook, is a small, portable personal computer (PC). Laptops typically have a Clamshell design, clamshell form factor (design), form factor with a flat-panel computer scree ...

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current word ...

, produced in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Thorn EMI Thorn EMI was a major British company involved in consumer electronics, music, defence and retail. Created when Thorn Electrical Industries merged with EMI in October 1979, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituen ...

Datatech, then in

Feltham Feltham () is a town in West London, England, from Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it became part of the London Borough of Hounslow in 1965. The parliamentary constituency of Feltham and Heston (UK Parliament constituency), Felt ...

Middlesex, primarily intended for use by

UK Government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

s.Retro Review: Thorn EMI Liberator (1985)
TechTonic Released in 1985, it is considered to be the first mass-produced British laptop. Thorn EMI Datatech simultaneously held the contracts for the repair of the

Sinclair ZX80 The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer launched on 29 January 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. (later to be better known as Sinclair Research). It is notable for being one of the first computers available in the United Kingdom for less than a hu ...

and

ZX81 The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-c ...

History

The design of the Liberator was instigated in 1983 by the UK Government's

Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency The Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), formerly the Central Computer Agency (CCA), was a UK government agency providing computer and telecoms support to government departments. History Formation Archived records C ...

(CCTA). It was envisaged as a portable device to allow civil servants to write and print their own reports, rather than using the services of typists. The CCTA initially contacted

Dragon Data Dragon Data Ltd. was a Welsh producer of home computers during the early 1980s. These computers, the Dragon 32/64, Dragon 32 and Dragon 64, strongly resembled the Tandy Corporation, Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer ("CoCo")—both followed a standard ...

to develop the product, but the company went into administration shortly afterwards, and the engineering team were taken on by Thorn EMI to continue the project in 1984. The team consisted of five former

employees. Derek Williams headed up the business side of the endeavour, working closely with the CCTA and Thorn EMI senior management. John Peacock managed the finances, vendors, and component suppliers. Jan Wojna designed the hardware and packaging of the electronics into the custom designed case. Duncan Smeed wrote the low level system software and worked closely with Digital Research on the operating system implementation. John Linney created the embedded word processor and terminal emulation applications. The Liberator entered limited production in early 1985 and was officially launched in September of that year, with PR from Aspect Public Relations. The journalist launch was the first promotional event held in the

Cabinet War Rooms The Churchill War Rooms is a museum in London and one of the five branches of the Imperial War Museum. The museum comprises the ''Cabinet War Rooms'', a historic underground complex that housed a British government command centre throughout the ...

. Despite plans for improved Liberator Mk1A and Mk2 variants, production of the Liberator ended in September 1986.

Description

The Liberator was based on a

Zilog Z80A The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog that played an important role in the evolution of early personal computing. Launched in 1976, it was designed to be software-compatible with the Intel 8080, offering a compelling altern ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

and a

Gate array A gate array is an approach to the design and manufacture of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) using a semiconductor device fabrication, prefabricated chip with components that are later interconnected into logic devices (e.g. NAN ...

implementing the screen controller, keyboard interface and other I/O logic. The

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...

display had a resolution of 480 x 128 pixels, or 80 columns by 16 lines of text. Interfaces comprised two S5/8

serial port A serial port is a serial communication Interface (computing), interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one bit at a time. This is in contrast to a parallel port, which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in Pa ...

s and two expansion buses, one specifically for extra RAM. Two battery packs were available, a NiCad rechargeable pack giving 12 hours operation, or one holding four AA cells giving 16 hours. The Liberator had 40 kB of internal RAM as standard, plus an optional 24 kB which could be write-protected by means of an external switch and had its own

button cell A button cell, watch battery, or coin battery is a small battery made of a single electrochemical cell and shaped as a squat cylinder typically in diameter and high – resembling a button. Stainless steel usually forms the bottom body and ...

battery to provide

non-volatile storage Non-volatile memory (NVM) or non-volatile storage is a type of computer memory that can retain stored information even after power is removed. In contrast, volatile memory needs constant power in order to retain data. Non-volatile memory typ ...

. Another 24 kB of non-volatile RAM could be plugged into the external RAM expansion bus. The Liberator's custom wordprocessing software ran under the

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. The external dimensions of the Liberator were 295 x 252 x 35mm.

References

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External links

* British inventions Business laptops Computers designed in the United Kingdom Early laptops Computer-related introductions in 1985 {{WordProcessor-stub