zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu (Andrew Zimmerman) (04/24/91)
I saw an article for the HP-95 on the news tonight. The news made a big deal
about it, saying it was starting a whole new market. Although the machine
looked nice, I was wondering why it is considered to be starting a market.
The Poquet and Portfolio have been out for quite a while (a year or so). It
would seem that they started the market, rather then HP. It might have to
do with the fact that lotus is built-in.
In the article in the paper, it compared the new HP to an IBM PC. I would
rather they had compared the Poquet, the Portfolio,and the HP-95. From
what I have heard, the Poquet is the only one with a full 80x25 screen.
(Personally, I don't like where the on/off key is on the Poquet) I think,
(please correct me) that both the portfolio and HP-95 only have 40x16 screens.
So, how about someone in the know comparing all of the "palm-top" machines.
Andrew
zimmer@calvin.stanford.eduanthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) (04/25/91)
In article <1991Apr24.072657.26687@neon.Stanford.EDU> zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu (Andrew Zimmerman) writes: >I saw an article for the HP-95 on the news tonight. The news made a big deal >about it, saying it was starting a whole new market. Although the machine >looked nice, I was wondering why it is considered to be starting a market. Because the news media is stupid. >(Personally, I don't like where the on/off key is on the Poquet) I think, >(please correct me) that both the portfolio and HP-95 only have 40x16 screens. You're right, there isn't really anything new to the HP-95LX, in this case HP is entering a field that other companies have been in for years. The Atari Portfolio comes with a spreadsheet, although limited. The Psion Organiser has been out since 1986 and has a Lotus 123 compatible spreadsheet available. The HP machine is pretty nifty though, and is an improvment on the Atari. It's got more built in stuff. Three 128K RAM cards plus a serial interface for the Portfolio is about the same as the price difference of the HP. This is pretty good for a company with a reputation for expensive hardware. I'd wait and see what new machine Atari is going to come out with. There have been rumors of a 286 based machine. -- <-:(= Anthony Stieber anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony
agodwin@acorn.co.uk (Adrian Godwin) (04/26/91)
In article <11398@uwm.edu> anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes: >In article <1991Apr24.072657.26687@neon.Stanford.EDU> zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu (Andrew Zimmerman) writes: >>I saw an article for the HP-95 on the news tonight. The news made a big deal >>about it, saying it was starting a whole new market. Although the machine >>looked nice, I was wondering why it is considered to be starting a market. > >Because the news media is stupid. > True, but that's not all the story - mostly, it's because the biggest market for such a machine is composed of non-computer-professionals. They've had their fingers burnt before with machines that turned out not to run their familiar software and will jump at the chance to buy something with a 'trustworthy' PC name like 1-2-3 on it. They don't care whether someone else has done it earlier/cheaper/better - they want a plug-in-and-play solution. So HP may not have broken new ground technically (though I have no doubt at all that it's a beautiful machine), but they have done in marketing it where the buyers are. -adrian -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adrian Godwin (agodwin@acorn.co.uk)