dm (05/12/82)
At the 1980 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, either Panasonic or Sony (I'm sorry I really don't remember which) had a demonstration of their new "Pocket Computer" it came with 4k of RAM a BASIC interpreter a SNAP assembler, a 400 year clock, extendable memory (external) upto 4MB (yes that is mega-bytes) and loads of other goodies. The price was supposed to be "that of a television set" I guess that meant somewhere between 50 and 700 dollars. Any way, a few months later BYTE Magazine's cover story (January '81) was about this same computer, another version being distributed by another Japanese Electronics firm, and the Radio Shack model, which they said was a cheap imitation without any of the other machine's virtues. Well it has been another 18 months since that article came out, and still the only one of the three machines I seen on the market is "the cheap imitation." Yesterday I received my copy of Popular Electronics, and low and behold the cover story was "Pocket Computers" but it again turned out to be about modifications to the Radio Shack. The question is: Does anyone know what happened to them? Are they ever going to be released, or are they out, but not in America? Dave Miller miller@yale