HighScreen BlueNote notebook computer

UvA Computer Museum catalogue nr 07.07

highscreen bluenote
This early (1993) notebook computer was marketed by the German company of HighScreen. It is mainly interesting for its nice layout by the Italian designer Colani. It is based on a 80486 processor, and has 4 Mbytes of on-board memory (expandable); a 120 Mb IDE harddisk; a floppy drive; a PCMCIA slot; a VGA screen (in our case black-and-white); a built-in trackball.

Unfortunately the machine uses a 3.6V NiCd battery for keeping the CMOS memory alive. NiCd batteries are infamous for their capacity of ruining electronics when not properly attended or in time replaced. (A battery soldered onto a circuit board in a notebook computer is hardly replaceable at all). In our case, the chemicals from the battery were spread over a large area, breaking circuit-board connections and causing short circuits, and leaving a dead machine. Removing the battery, cleaning the board and mounting a new battery was to no avail.
An unrelated but no less nasty problem - common with older notebooks - is the non-functioning of the LCD screen backlight. The machine has a connection for an external VGA screen, hence testing was still possible.
I bought the BlueNote on the fleemarket for 30 euros (which is at least 25 too much, in hindsight). Never trust people who say that they have been using the computer until yesterday...
The illustration was taken from the cover of the user's manual.

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