Toshiba T1200

The Toshiba T1200 was a laptop manufactured by the Toshiba Corporation, first made in 1987. It was an upgraded version of the Toshiba T1100 Plus.

Toshiba T1200

Toshiba T1200
Manufacturer	Toshiba Corporation
Release date	1987 (1987)
Introductory price	US$6,499 (equivalent to $15,501 in 2021)
Operating system	MS-DOS 3.3
CPU	Intel 80C86, 4.77 or 9.54 MHz switchable
Memory	1 MB RAM
Storage	20 MB hard drive; internal 3.5" floppy drive, 720 KB; external 5.25" floppy drive, 360 KB
Display	Textmode: 80×25
Graphics	640×200 (CGA)
Input	Keyboard 83 keys, QWERTY
Mass	4.1 kg (9.0 lb)
Predecessor	Toshiba T1100 Plus

It was equipped with an Intel 80C86 processor at 9.54 MHz, 1 MB RAM of which 384 KB could be used for LIM EMS or as a RAMdisk, CGA graphics card, one 720 KB 3.5" floppy drive and one 20 MB hard drive (Some models had two floppy drives and no hard drive controller card.) MS-DOS 3.30 was included with the laptop. It was the first laptop with a swappable battery pack. Its original price was 6499 USD.

The T1200's hard drive had an unusual 26-pin interface made by JVC, incompatible with ST506/412 or ATA interfaces. Floppy drives were connected using similar 26-pin connectors. The computer had many unique functions, such as Hard RAM - a small part of RAM was battery-backed and could be used as non-volatile hard drive. Another function allowed to suspend the system or power control the hard drive (which was still dependent on the hard disk's on/off switch).

The Toshiba T1200xe is a later model of this laptop. It had a 12 MHz 80C286 processor and a 20 MB hard disk drive. It also had 1 MB of RAM expandable to 5 MB.