[3] The Athena 1 features dual NCS-800 microprocessors; the NCS-800 was a second-source CMOS variant of the Zilog Z80 processor manufactured by National Semiconductor designed for minimal power draw.
[4] Mitchell designed the Athena 1 with no internal floppy drive, as was common for portables at the time, to keep the laptop relatively lightweight at 15 pounds (6.8 kg).
[7] Mitchell commissioned the Key Tronic corporation of Spokane, Washington, to design and manufacture the laptop's grey and black keyboard.
[10] The CP/M 2.2 operating system, a JRT Pascal interpreter, Chang Labs' Profit Plan spreadsheet application, and the MiniVEDIT text editor are all included on the laptop's internal 12 KB ROM chip.
[11] Mitchell eschewed from shipping the Athena 1 with the BASIC programming language, instead opting for JRT Pascal, as he felt the latter was so ubiquitous that most purchasers of his laptop would already have it.
[4] In the first quarter of 1984, Athena released an upgrade kit for the laptop which housed a Harris 80C86, the CMOS version of Intel's 8086 microprocessor.