rcarter@WSMR02.ARPA (Raymond Carter STEWS-NR-AS 678-1376) (06/22/87)
I have a friend who has been using an Epson Geneva (also known as PX-8) for about a year, and he loves it! The tape drive acts pretty much like a floppy, but it is incredibly S-L-O-W. If you get one you may want to look into getting one of the battery powered 3.5 inch disk drives. The display seems all right. Not outstanding, but adequate. You can usually adjust it to a readable level. Don't think you can add to the 64K ramdisk. If I find out otherwise, I'll let you know. One thing that has impressed me is how the thing acts when power goes down on the internal NiCad batteries - it beeps, shuts itself down, and waits for you to plug in the charger. It then takes up right where it left off - even in the middle of a download! My (second hand) observations are that it is a nice little portable. It is maybe not a substitute for a full sized computer, but if portability is important, it's a good way to go. I would really look at a disk drive for it, since it takes literally minutes to load off the tape drive. My friend packs the computer, disk drive, cables, and disks in a small backpack type carrier for transport. The terminal emulation is SOROC (same as Apple CP/M).