22 Mar
2000
22 Mar
'00
4:32 a.m.
At 11:06 AM 3/22/00 -0500, John wrote:
> How about a 5100 (sounded like something I might want to hoard if I see
one)?
I remember reading an article (in Byte?) about that thing ages ago, it
sounds like a bigger version of HP's HP-85 only with APL instead of BASIC?
Anything that strange has *got* to be worth grabbing!
A 5100 is definitely worth grabbing!
Speaking of which, has the HP-85 totally disappeared? My dad had one
briefly when I was in high school, I remember using it to cheat on my calc
homework and brought in adding machine tapes with the graphs I didn't feel
like sketching by hand... And there was one in the computer showroom
on the second floor of the Harvard Coop. But I haven't seen one since.
IIRC, the BASIC "PRINT" statement *really* meant print, if you wanted the
display to be on the tiny CRT you had to use something else, "TYPE" maybe?
The way they stuck the BASIC keywords on single keys (like a ZX81, only you
didn't have to use them) was crazy, they were scattered all over the place.
But the combination of a cartridge tape drive, adding machine printer, and
teeny tiny CRT was kind of neat, each part was low-end crap but if you put
them all together it was a pretty usable system.
Nope, there are still lots of HP 85s out there chugging away everyday.
They're still widely used as test equipment controllers. I have about 10
of them here. The great thing about the 85 was that you got a usable
display, keyboard, printer and a mass storage device in one compact unit.
And you could add HP-IB, serial or parallel interfaces, special functions
or more memory just by plugging them into the back. You didn't have to be
a software engineer, hardware engineer or test equipment engineer to set
one up and use it. Their math was also much more accurate than the run of
the mill computer.
Joe