2 Jun
1997
2 Jun
'97
5:09 a.m.
On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Sam Ismail wrote:
OK, I found my HX-20 power supply and fired this
sucker up. Talk about
neat-o. It indeed does have CP/M in ROM! It also has two 32K ROM drives
and a 24K RAM drive. The drives can be configured anyway you like. The
current setting is: A: = RAM, B: = ROM1, C: = ROM2. ROM1 has the standard
CP/M utilities on it, such as PIP, STAT, etc. ROM2 has WordStar! This
unit is capable of hi-res graphics it seems, as when you boot wordstar it
comes up with a big MicroPro graphics display. There is a configuration
program which allows you to set up the system. You can set the dimensions
of two seperate virtual screens. Currently virtual screen 1 is set to
80x24, and virtual screen 2 is set to 80x8, which is the actual dimensions
of the LCD flip-up display. You can also set the serial port baud rate
(up to 19200!).
This unit has several ports on the back, including a Serial port, an
RS-232C port (I gleaned from the configuration that one seems to be for a
modem while the other for a printer perhaps). It can also hook-up to up
to 4 external disk drives.
The other port is for connecting a disk drive.
This is an entirely cool little system...a CP/M
laptop. What a concept.
It is a pretty nice machine. You didn't mention the built in micro cassette
drive which looks to CP/M just like a floppy (more or less). The tape
drive transfers data at 300 baud so it can easily provide hours of
fun and enjoyment. On the other hand, the system does know where all of
the files are on the tape so it does not have to be manually searched.
A dejanews search on Epson and px-8 will provide a good deal of information,
make sure to select the "Old" database though.
--pec
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