At £1,795 it can only be a Miracle

The Miracle, from Portico, was another British-built Z80 machine running CP/M, but is clearly aiming at the Osborne/Kaypro "luggable" market.

When the Osborne 1 launched in 1981, it completely reset the bar for such semi-portable machines with its low price and - in particular - its bundled software, included "free" with the computer. 

Every luggable that came after was more-or-less forced to follow this pattern, and the Miracle is no exception with its "£1,500 software free" tag.

[picture: portico_percn_19830922.webp|A collage of photos from a review of the Miracle in September 22nd 1983's edition of PCN]

The Kaypro II, launched in 1982, improved on the Osborne 1 with a 9" screen, instead of the tiny 5" display on the Osborne, and a more rugged construction, so clearly Portico is going one (inch) better with a 10" monitor built in. 

The 28lb/13kg Miracle also appears to have no fewer than five Z80 processors, for various tasks such as memory access and input/output handling. It also offered two "intelligent" 5¼" floppy-disk drives which were, unusually, backed by a 64K cache. This saved the most frequently-used disk sectors, which helped to increase disk performance.

In a review in September 22nd 1983's edition of PCN, Max Phillips concluded:

~"The Miracle is something of a pleasant surprise. It seems a sensible system with a clever hardware design and enough free software to put it into the value-for-money stakes. It isn't the most advanced business system, but nonetheless is capable of a great deal of useful work around the office. You might well consider the Miracle alongside systems like the Osborne, and Epson QX-10. The choice is very much a personal one, and the Miracle's 'touch of class' may weigh heavily in its favour"[source: PCN Pro-Test: An immaculate conception?, PCN, September 22 1983, p. 31].

There was also a dig at Adam Osborne's claim that the Osborne 1 could fit under an aeroplane seat. Phillips quipped: 

~"It may be a while before I get to test that with a Miracle, but it is really difficult to fit it between the seats on the bus home".

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Many of these sorts of adverts were quickly lashed together and were often laid out by hand, but this is one of the most poorly-laid-out of all. The text "only be a" is a full 20% smaller than the rest of the headline.



