Lazy Game Reviews – Zenith Z-171 Vintage Computer Overview

Posted by JohnD on Friday, May 25, 2012 · 18 Comments

Zenith may not have been the biggest name in computers in the 80′s, but the Z-171 is an awesome machine. One of the first portable battery-powered PCs, and one of the first to use a backlit LCD display!

Jfkwasfunny

first?

Ballock

Last?

Dpad

Third!

D-Pad

You’re not me. =-/

http://www.facebook.com/fracassi Anthony Fracassi

Will this handle Diablo 3?

http://twitter.com/lazygamereviews Lazy Game Reviews

Yes

http://twitter.com/xaer0knight Jason Hicks

holy crap its default screen reminds me of conky in Linux Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, etc… this is pretty beefy for a 8088 thanks for sharing
http://twitter.com/xaer0knight Jason Hicks

oh another note, will MSDOS 6.22 work with this or even Windows 1.0 or up to 3.0?

http://twitter.com/lazygamereviews Lazy Game Reviews

DOS 6.22 would not work on this, as it has no hard drive and the OS doesn’t boot from a floppy like previous versions. Wouldn’t need to run anything higher than v3.3 though, since programs that required higher versions of DOS wouldn’t run on the Z-171 regardless. Windows 1.0 should work provided the Z-171 had enough RAM (mine does) and both floppy drives are working.

http://twitter.com/steelybard Joe Pineda

No offense, but I can’t believe I watched two minutes of the same thing, standing still with just narration. You could have tried shooting the thing from different angles or something.

Otherwise, very well documented review.

http://twitter.com/lazygamereviews Lazy Game Reviews

Good point, I’ll have to add some variety to the video footage next time.

http://www.gigaboots.com/ GigaDan

On that note, when listing model numbers some onscreen text would be nice. I’m sure there are some who couldn’t follow. I was fine but it makes for easier viewing when visual aids such as images or onscreen text are added to the mix.

Collin Daniels

Pretty awesome! Ever since I got into vintage computing, I always wanted a portable like this.
Vfxsquadleader

great….now i want one.
necrom23

Duke Nukem can either review Zenith Data Systems or Chew Gum.. and he’s all out of Gum.
josh the nes nerd

hey c:/lgr nice job: its good like your other reviews i noticed you dont have a specific video page for c:/lgr
like hvgn,pat,roo ect.why iz that