thumb|Osborne Vixen enclosure

The Osborne Vixen is a "luggable" portable computer announced by the Osborne Computer Corporation in November 1984, as a follow-up to their Osborne 1 and Osborne Executive system.

The Vixen has a 4 MHz Zilog Z80 microprocessor with 64 KB dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and 4 KB EPROM. It has a 7-inch diagonal amber display that can show 24 lines by 80 columns of memory mapped video. It uses two 400 KB disk drives, utilizing double-density double-sided 5.25" diskettes. As a luggable, it weighs about 18 pounds. Contemporary advertising pointed out that it could fit under the seat in an airplane, with dimensions of 12 by 16 by 6 inches (321 by 413 by 159 mm).

When it was released, the Vixen had a retail price of $1298. Due to technical problems with prototypes and the corporate bankruptcy, by the time the CP/M Vixen was introduced, it had already been made obsolete by MS-DOS IBM PC compatibles. A last ditch effort to design and market a fully IBM PC compatible produced three prototypes, but too late to save the company from bankruptcy.

<!-- Rumors that the Vixen was never released are disproved here http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=351 -->

Software

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Program Name

! Version

! Published by

! Program Type

|-

| Desolation

|

|

| Game

|-

| Osboard Software

|

|

| Graphics

|-

| WordStar/MailMerge

| 3.3

| MicroPro International

| Application

|-

| SuperCalc

| 2

| Sorcim

| Application

|-

| MBASIC

|

| Microsoft

| Application

|-

|Media Master

|

|

|Utility

|-

|TurnKey

|

|

|Utility

|}

References

  • Scans of a Vixen sales brochure