The Osborne Vixen was a "luggable" portable computer

Portable computer

A portable computer is a computer that is designed to be moved from one place to another and includes a display and keyboard. Portable computers, by their nature, are generally microcomputers. Portable computers, because of their size, are also commonly known as 'Lunchbox' or 'Luggable' computers...

 announced by the Osborne Computer Corporation

Osborne Computer Corporation

The Osborne Computer Corporation was a pioneering maker of portable computers.-The Osborne 1:After Adam Osborne sold his computer book-publishing company to McGraw-Hill in 1979, he decided to sell an inexpensive portable computer with bundled software and hired Lee Felsenstein to design it...

 in November 1984, as a follow up to their Osborne 1

Osborne 1

The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 10.7 kg , cost USD$ 1795, and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system...

 and Osborne Executive

Osborne Executive

The Osborne Executive was the planned successor of the already commercially successful Osborne 1 portable computer by Osborne Computer Corporation. The Executive was a collection of the good features from the Osborne 1 and fixed some of its predecessor's flaws....

 system.

The Vixen had a 4 MHz Zilog Z80

Zilog Z80

The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...

 microprocessor, with 64 KB dynamic

Dynamic random access memory

Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...

 RAM. It had a 7-inch diagonal amber display that could show 24 lines by 80 columns of memory mapped video. It used two 400 KB disk drives, utilizing double-density double-sided

Double-sided disk

In computer science, a double-sided disk is a disk of which both sides are used to store data.Early floppy disks only used one surface for recording. The term "single sided disk" was not common until the introduction of double-sided disks, which offered double the capacity in the same physical size...

 5.25" diskettes. As a luggable, it weighed about 18 pounds. Contemporary advertising pointed out that it could fit under the seat in airplane

Fixed-wing aircraft

A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...

, with dimensions of 12 5/8 by 16 1/4 by 6 1/4 inches (321 by 413 by 159 mm).

When it was released, the Vixen had a retail price of $1298. Customers also had the option of purchasing a 10 megabyte hard disk for $1498.

The Vixen used version 2.2 of the CP/M

CP/M

CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...

 operating system. It was also bundled with a number of software packages: WordStar

WordStar

WordStar is a word processor application, published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that enjoyed a dominant market share during the early to mid-1980s. Although Seymour I...

, the popular word processing package; SuperCalc

SuperCalc

SuperCalc was a spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980, and originally bundled as part of the CP/M software package included with the Osborne 1 portable computer....

, a spreadsheet; MBASIC, a programming language; Osboard, a graphics and drawing program; TurnKey, a system utility; MediaMaster, a data interchange program that allowed compatibility with over "200 other computers"; and Desolation, a game.

The Vixen was also known as the Osborne 4. It was developed and released after the bankruptcy of the Osborne corporation. An earlier system also called "Vixen" was never released. Due to technical problems with prototypes and the corporate bankruptcy, by the time the CP/M Vixen was introduced, it was already obsoleted by MS-DOS IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...

s.

Software

Program Name	Version	Published by	Program Type
Desolation			Game
Osboard Software			Graphics
Wordstar	3.3	MicroPro International MicroPro International MicroPro International Corporation was the publisher of WordStar, a popular early word processor for personal computers.-History:Seymour I. Rubinstein was an employee of early microcomputer company IMSAI, where he negotiated software contracts with Digital Research and Microsoft...	Application
Supercalc	2	Sorcim Sorcim Sorcim was an early start-up company in Silicon Valley, founded in June 1980 by Richard Frank, Paul McQuesten, Martin Herbach, Anil Lakhwara , and Steve Jasik - all former Control Data Corporation employees working in the Language Group in Sunnyvale, CA...	Application
MBasic		Microsoft	Application