On Fri, 7 Sep 2012, Michael J. Mahon wrote:
Which came later, maybe not that many years at the time but enough to be significant. I thought the Tandy pocket computers used some oddball CPU, but I can't remember. They were certainly more pocketable, though I think the Quasar had a more full size keyboard.aiiadict@gmail.com wrote:this is for MJM I found a magazine article about that 6502 computer I sent you a few years back http://books.google.com/books?id=FTAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=apple+II+TMS+9918&source=bl&ots=zcTTrxj7SN&sig=GaTocSdkJVnBAbFRPDcWyDfCi18&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=falseActually, the computer you sent was not the Quasar, but the much smaller Tandy Pocket Computer PC-3. Much smaller both outside and inside. ;-)
I got a Casio organizer a few years ago at a garage sale, for 3.00. It was heftier than some, and has all of 512K of RAM. It flips open the display in the upper half, the keyboard in the lower. It's kind of the descendant of those pocket computers, though it's significant that by the time it came out (I don't know exactly when), nobody saw a need to include a programming language, or the ability to load programs. Except for the smaller display and keyboard, that Casio beat the Radio Shack Model 100 laptop (which had a full size keyboard, but a display of 40 characters by 8 lines). Actually, the display was smaller on the Casio, but displayed as many characters. Then a few years later, the move was to PDAs that were even better in specs, and again returned to loadable programs.
Michael