borg@inuxh.UUCP (Kevin Borg) (07/08/86)
I might be in the market for a laptop, and am looking for comments or any experiences that readers may have. I would like to have as little hassle as possible in using it as a note-taker, portable terminal, writing papers while traveling, etc. I do have some CP/M-80 equipment at home, so the NEC Starlet comes to mind, since it might be possible to generate personal applications in "C" and load them into the Starlet. I have also seen good reviews of the Toshiba T-1100. Anyone out there have any views, good or bad? I'm open to observations, experiences, information on good dealers, and suggestions (related to this subject, please!). Thanks, Kevin Borg AT&T Indianapolis, IN
alford@ecsvax.UUCP (Ross Alford) (07/10/86)
In article <441@inuxh.UUCP> borg@inuxh.UUCP (Kevin Borg) writes: >I might be in the market for a laptop, and am looking for comments >... >...NEC Starlet comes to mind... I'm happy to comment. I've had an 8401ALS for a while now, and I think it really is a nice machine that is being throttled by NEC's unagressive or unimaginative marketing. For those of you who saw the Byte review last fall, the 8401ALS is the model with larger, more readable screen they said was coming. The screen really is much better (I've seen both models), though of course it still could use more contrast. The machine itself is great-- only about 5 pounds and the size of a Tandy 200, it is compatible with all CP/M software I've tried, has built in VT-100 emulation good enough that vi works fine (after changing li# to 16), built-in WordStar, a nice spreadsheet (though for some insane reason they did not include any functions that can deal with logarithms, exponents, or square roots-- you can't calculate a standard deviation), and a very nice TELCOM program that the Byte reviewer essentially ignored. The TELCOM has the ability to do XMODEM protocol binary file transfers, and can actually cope with them at 19200 baud. This means that it is VERY easy to move data and programs into and out of the computer. The 300 baud internal modem works fine, and takes a standard RJ-11 plug, unlike the Tandy policy of requiring you to buy a special cable that costs ~$20.00. The machine has a Z80 equivalent that runs at about 4 Mhz and performs quite respectably. It has a really neat extended BIOS, which makes it easy to write things like extended comm programs or programs to do bit-mapped (480 x 128) graphics. The docs for this cost $25.00 extra. I regularly run Turbo Pascal and BDS C on mine, and have a nice device-independent graphics library written for it in Turbo that I'm moving to my other machines. The WordStar occupies its own 32k ROM, and has nearly all the features of standard WS. It is entirely compatible at the file level-- a document composed on an I*M PC (running WS 3.2 or 3.3, anyway), or a CP/M machine with Wordstar, will have an internal format identical to a file created on the 8401, and it is thus no problem at all to swap back and forth with a larger machine whenever you want. There are very few WS features missing--the ones that come to mind are the ability to display a file diretory, to move columns of text, and, the only one I really miss, the ability (^OD) to inhibit the display of control characters. This means that if your text uses lots of formatting tricks, it can be somewhat hard to read through smoothly in places. The other negative feature is that there are about 4 built-in printer setups, (several NEC printers and the no-features non-backspacing standard printer), which cannot be altered, only selected among. Most people will probably want to transfer their text to a larger machine for final editing, spell-checking, and printing anyway. It is possible with a RAMdisk attachment, to simply run a standard CP/M WordStar if you miss some features. I've tried this, and it works. My other minor objection is the way they programmed the function keys. It is similar to the default programming in MSDOS versions--common functions are ignored, and things like ^KX, which by definition is used only once per edit of a file, are included. Still, it is a very nearly complete WS, and entirely useable. The poor marketing I mentioned above is just that I think this machine lacks one thing that would make it really sell--about 256k of built-in RAM disk. It comes with only 64k of RAM, which can be partitioned 50/50 between RAMdisk and TPA, but 32k of storage is pretty hopeless for anything other than memo writing. If NEC had the sense to add 256K of CMOS memory in the case and list the whole thing for $999 or less, I suspect they could sell bundles of them. There is a bright side to this, though. A very nice independent vendor, with whom I have no relationship other than as a satisfied customer, sells 128k and 256k RAM packs for the 8401 at very reasonable prices. These are about 3.5 inches square by 1/2 inch thick, and plug into a bus expansion port on the side of the machine, leaving about 3 inches sticking out. They can be left permanently attached (mine hasn't been unplugged in a couple of months, and I carry the machine around a lot). The last prices I saw were $169 for the 128k and $329 for the 256k, including Blue Label S&H. The computer plus a 256k RAM pack can be had new for about $1000, maybe less if you shop around mail order places for the computer. It weighs less than half as much as any of the MSDOS machines, has no delicate disk drives, and for my purposes, primarily WordStar and Turbo Pascal use, is equally good (maybe better-- WS on this is considerably faster than WS running off a floppy drive). The vendor for the RAM packs is Node Computer, 916-265-4668, FYI. They have built-in lithium batteries, supposed to maintain contents for at least two years. With a RAMdisk attached, you can use all 64k of built in memory to program, and have a 58k CP/M TPA. As you can tell if you've stuck with me so far, I like this machine. For a combination of power and size, I don't think it can be beat. Another nice thing (the last, I promise) is that NEC has toll-free support lines for software, hardware, and general information, and they seem to be quite willing to talk to you for as long as you want. Ross Alford ...mcnc!ecsvax!alford Disclaimer: Anything that is capitalized may be a trademark of someone. The opinions expressed above are probably mine, but are certainly not those of any entity weighing more than 100 kilograms. (Duke University, for example)