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COMMODORE SX-64 - the first portable colour computer

5 Inch colour screen
The vintage computer fan gets immediately excited when the front of the SX is lifted: the front turns out to be the keyboard. Then he is pleasantly surprised by the 5-inch colour screen at the left in the computer itself. A colour monitor, 5 inch, from 1983! At the right under a tiny cover there are five buttons, among others to adjust the brightness of the screen and the volume of the built-in speaker. In between is a built-in floppy drive, yes, a real Commodore 64. Above the drive there is storage compartment, apparently to store floppies, although that doesn't seem a good idea next to a monitor. 

Not for game fanatics On the front of this beautiful machine (that means at the other side of the keyboard) is written: 'Executive computer'. So not meant for the game fanatics: They were better served by the common Commodore 64 connected to a bigger monitor or a TV. But even if the SX-64 was only used for administrative purposes the 5-inch screen causes trouble for the eyes. That is one of the reasons for the poor sales figures, although the SX-64 could be connected to a normal monitor. But who wants to buy a portable that he needs to connect to another screen?

Athletic
And there are other things that can be said against the term 'portable'. As much as 4 pounds (10 kilo) weighs the SX-64. A German computer critic wrote in 1984 that the handy handle made carrying the SX the first kilometres a piece of cake. Was he a well trained athletic, this critic? Or do I have to train more...?
Further doubts on the term portable were cast by the fact that the SX-64 had to stand next to a socket, because it didn't contain a battery.
All this, combined with the price of approximately $1000, held the SX-64 far away from the successes the Commodore 64 achieved. The manufacturing, started in 1983, was discontinued in 1986. 

SX-100 and DX-64
De SX was for the first time presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in the United States in January 1983. At that moment still under another name, the SX-100, that contained a black-and-white screen instead of a colour screen. But the SX-100 was never manufactured and the idea was replaced by the SX-64. Besides the SX there also exists a DX-64: a model with two floppy drives (for which the storage compartment was sacrificed). But the DX-64 was manufactured in very small amounts, and is thus much, much rarer then the SX!

Specifications of the Commodore SX-64