11 Apr
2003
11 Apr
'03
10:04 a.m.
On Fri, 11 Apr 2003, Tony Duell wrote:
Sure, as does a graphical display, and many other features that came out
later. Point is, the HP9830 _was_ earlier than the IBM5100, and
presumably HP couldn't justify providing a CRT display on it (they
certainly could have designed one -- they had CRT displays on larger
computers at the time).
If you want to consider _early personal computers_ then IMHO you have to
consider the HP9830...
-tony
The other point is that the 9830 is fairly
similar (to the user) to the
IBM5100. It's about the same size (albeit with only a 1-line display), it
runs a high-level language from internal ROM, it has built-in mass
storage, etc. And yet the 5100 is a bit later than the 9830. Why the
former gets all the glory is beyond me...
A multi-line display on a CRT helps a lot ;)