>Date:    Fri, 16 Dec 1994 15:09:00 PST
>From:    Tom Stelter <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: HP Oldtimers
>
>pss.  No one has mentioned that special pc(humor) called the HP250 and the
>Business Basic language.
>
>>Date:    Fri, 16 Dec 1994 14:56:37 -0800
>>From:    Bruce Toback <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: Re: HP Oldtimers
>>
>>Tom Stelter writes:
>>pss.  No one has mentioned that special pc(humor) called the HP250 and the
>>Business Basic language.
>>
>>Actually, the 250 was a very successful product. One of the reasons for the
>>existence of Business Basic on the 3000 is that there was a crying need
>>for an upgrade path. The 250 ran IMAGE and a forms package very much like
>>VPlus; it also supported extra terminals. It was a popular platform for
>>OEMs and systems houses.
>>
>>-- Bruce
 
   I liked the HP250 (and later the HP260) very much:)  It was a great little
machine.  At one time in the early '80s I was doing consulting work on nine
different clients that had the HP250, and continued to do independent
consulting on one of them until two years ago.  It had IMAGE, a "VPLUS" ish
screen handler, and function key access built right into BASIC; it could talk
to the HP3000; your could hang system printers off the HP-IB; you could have
up to ten terminals (and in later years, each terminal could have a slave
printer attached and easily usable); it had a complete, powerful, plotter and
mathmatics sub-systems; and I thought the IMAGE utilites were friendlier then
on the early HP3000.  Unfortunately, it was all interpreted and not
very fast:(
 
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