"PearsonPete"@LLL-MFE.ARPA (03/09/84)
We took a long, hard look at the HP150 here, and my appraisal was that
it's a dead-end machine. (HP fans can take comfort in the fact that I once
asserted with equal confidence that IBM could never compete in the personal-
computer market.) From the 9845 and the HP150, I'd judge that HP's small-
computer operation is a go-off-and-do-your-own-thing-in-a-corner-and-don't-
look-too-much-at-what-anybody-else-is-doing sort of business. Mind you, they
do very good things off in that corner of theirs; but if you want to play with
any products that DIDN'T come out of that corner, you'll have gross compati-
bility problems.
So my prediction is this: If what you want to do is exactly what you
see done in HP's demo software package, you'll be very happy. But if ever
you want to do anything else, anything that HP didn't decide you should
want to do, you'll be frustrated.
- Peter.