I agree with both Nick and Joe, but would like to point out that all the HP
150's I've come in contact with were very reliable.  I'm sitting in a Navy
office right now, with four devices within arm's reach - the Pentium 200 PC
I'm typing this email on, an HP 150C (Touchscreen II) to my right, another
PC to my left, and an HP 9000/710 workstation behind me.  I use them all,
but the two most reliable, stable devices are the HP 150C and the HP
9000/710.

The good'ole serial connection on the HP 150C means that it is often
(average 3 hours a week) the ONLY device on this floor that can connect to
the HP systems a floor below.  The DOS 3.20 never crashes, its copy of
Reflection never crashes, and the last time it had any hardware work was in
1992 when the battery for the clock and NVRAM died.  Oh, and it has three
old HP 9153A 10 Mb disc drives.  The HP 150 and its three disc drives are
powered up and used EVERY workday, and have been ever since they were
bought new, sometime in 1985 or maybe 1986.

At home I have two HP 150B systems.  The are not used on a daily basis, but
they do work and neither has ever had a hardware failure.

The competition in the PC marketplace made it impossible for HP to build
Vectras as robustly as the HP 150s were built, and that is a shame.  So far
the HP 150 has outlasted five other PCs, of which only one (an HP Vectra)
was replaced before it experienced a major failure.

One of the quirks of the HP 150 that made it not compatible with the IBM
PCs was that it had a unique video memory architecture.  I presume it was
very similar to that of the HP terminals.  Converting an IBM PC program to
run on the HP 150 was a nightmare.  However, many programs converted to run
on the HP 150 ran faster on the HP 150 than on an IBM PC.  Micro EMACS
really flew (and still does) on the HP 150.  Now I run the full EMACS on
the Windows 95 PCs, and it is obviously faster, but the Micro EMACS on the
HP 150 is remarkably fast when you consider the diference in processor
speed and disc access and transfer rates (the HP 9153A discs have something
like 96 ms access rather than the 9 ms access speed of the PCs, and the HP
150's processor runs at 8 MHz while the PC's processor runs at 200 MHz).

John

At 10/27/99 04:56 AM , Joe Geiser wrote:
>Nick writes about the 150,
>
>> An HP mistake.  More seriously, HP's first "PC" was a 125, a CPM
>> machine, followed by the 120 (same but had a much smaller foot print).
>> Then HP came out with the 150, a DOS machine but NOT IBM compatible.
>> HP finally came out with the Vectra.  The 150 can be used as a
>> word processor, etc., but I don't feel anyone would have a use for it
>> unless they had a few of them still in use (perhaps as terminals) and
>> wanted another for spare parts.
>>
>> In reference to its being a mistake, it would have given HP a leg up
>> if it had been fully IBM compatible.
>
>I agree with what Nick said, but it also had a touchscreen option which, if it
>were fully IBM compatible, and the apps were there, could have made it a
>serious PC.  In a prior life, we had some of these and we wrote a few apps
that
>were kiosk-based, that utilized the touchscreen.
>
>(As for the 120, I had one personally - no hard disk but four floppies, and I
>used the Condor Database Management System for several applications such as
>project management and inventory/document control.  The printer was an Epson
>FX-80 with an HP Label on it.  Alas, that 120 and the printer, are in a
>landfill somewhere, buried deep down.  They worked hard, but outlived their
>life, and spare parts were difficult to find.)
>
>Joe


--------------------------------------------------------------
John Korb                            email: [log in to unmask]
Innovative Software Solutions, Inc.

The thoughts, comments, and opinions expressed herein are mine
and do not reflect those of my employer(s), or anyone else.