Toshiba Corp has launched an 80486-based laptop Dynabook with a thin-film transistor active matrix colour display screen. The Japanese personal computer market is still nowhere near as cut-throat as are the US and UK markets, and it is the first Toshiba product launched domestically to be based on an 80486 chip. Moreover the colour screen has been procured from an unidentified third party on an OEM basis and is not from the joint Toshiba-IBM Corp Display Technologies Inc plant in Himeji, central Japan, indicating that yield problems there remain severe. The Dynabook measures 11.7 by 8.3 by 2.3 thick and weighs 7 lbs 15 oz. By contrast Fujitsu Ltd’s new proprietary notebook personal computer, the FMR-Card, weighs only 3 lbs 6 oz in the floppy drive version and 3 lbs 12 oz with a hard disk. It has, for the first time, been procured by Fujitsu on an OEM basis from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. A new feature is a hand-held mouse called a Dome Point. Fujitsu hopes to sell 30,000 of the two new models over the next three years; they cost $2,100 and $3,100. – Anita Byrnes
