lief@hpfcrs.UUCP (lief) (02/09/85)
One system I would encourage you to check out is the HP Integral PC. The last issue of Byte (February) carried an article about it. The hard part about looking at one is that currently HP is not selling it through your typical computer stores -- got to go through a rep I believe. The Integral PC features are: * 68000 based UNIX system packed into a portable package. Folds up to a case about the size of a small portable sewing machines. Weighs about 25 pounds. * Uses custom HP IC for 3-d graphics. * Built-in Thinkjet (ink-jet) printer. Prints 150 character per second. * Tiltable 9-inch amber electroluminescent display. Displays 24 lines of 80 characters each. * Comes with 512 Kbytes RAM -- expandable to 1.5 Mbytes. * Built-in 3.5 inch double sided diskette drive with capacity of 710 Kbytes per disk. * 256 Kbytes of ROM contains the UNIX operating system. * Supports RAM disk such that a portion of RAM can be partitioned to act like a second disk drive. * External HPIB port, two front ports for keyboard, mouse, etc., and two expansion slots for more memory, modem, etc. * Price is $4995. Like the Apple Macintosh, the Integral PC uses windowing as a key element in the design. It allows up to 6 file windows to be open and active simultaneously. However, unlike the Macintosh which moves windows by rewriting every pixel in the window, the Integral PC treats the windows like "sprites" -- only pointers to the windows need be changed to move the windows. Unfortunately, I have not used it yet. I have sat down and played around with it but didn't know what I was doing. I understand that the documentation is extremely good and thorough. A tutorial disk is included which will take a new user through the system capabilities step by step. The tutorial takes eight hours to go completely through it (extremely thorough!). One complaint I have heard from some folks is that they wished it had more mass storage built in. Originally, HP planned to put a built-in 3.5 inch Winchester. However, they decided that for a system to be truly portable, and thus rugged, they were asking for trouble by putting in a Winchester which cannot survive the severe shocks and vibrations the the Integral PC is designed to live with. If you would like to have more mass storage than the internal diskette provides, (and for most applications, it is enough), it is recommended that you buy an external Winchester that interfaces to the HPIB. I would also recommend that you check out the Radio Shack Model 16B and the Data General One -- both of which also are UNIX portable systems. I also believe that Altos as well as Compupro make UNIX portable machines which you should check out. Lief Sorensen Hewlett Packard Co.