Newsgroups: comp.sys.palmtops
Subject: Re: Cheap, programmable, editor, terminal -- which ?
From: doelz@comp.bioz.unibas.ch (Reinhard Doelz)
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 15:41:03 GMT
Reply-To: doelz@urz.unibas.ch
Organization: EMBnet Switzerland [BASEL]   

In article <2417@sousa.tay.dec.com>, secrist@msdsws.enet.dec.com (Strong datatypes for weak minds.) writes:
|> 
|> What alternatives do I have today if I want a palmtop that is:
|> 

I had the same problem and purchased a ZEOS, which is reasonably priced 
(about DM 1000 in Germany, 900 SFR in Switzerland ) in Europe, and now 
runs on an (external) Robotics modem with 9600 baud (how can I get faster than 
this - I could support 14400 on my UNIX Cluster if I only wanted to ?) 
I also evaluated competitor models but found them unsuitable because of 
either too small keyboards or the need to have software loaded to it 
(in particular, I need a VT100 and text processing program). So even 
if you get a cheap palmtop you need to throw in cards and purchase 
licenses for the software, which adds up considerably if you do it right.
Earlier, I took a Powerbook with me on travel but this is too heavy and 
cannot be easily used on the plane/train without having one more 
piece of luggage. Further, it is much heavier in price so that I wouldn't 
afford it privately.   

|> 1) cheap (less than $1K, preferably less than $500)

allright, get a VT220 from the garbage  - I don't think that you'll make 
it lower than $700 (that is maybe the ZEOS price in the US ) , including 
the serial cable. 

|> 2) programmable (runs an o/s binaries or has programming lang built-in)

DOS comes with QUICKBasic :-) what do you want more ? :-) 
I tried to see what a reasonable development environment is and gave up on 
this. No way to get it onto a palmtop without getting poor on buying cards 
for memory. Also, don't forget that palmtops have usually only XT performance 
and compatibility (if any), so compiling might be tedious also. If you 
want to run binaries, you MUST purchase cards, otherwise the 300 K free 
will be exceeded easily; I couldn't even self-extract PKUNZIP without filling
the disk. The DOS is a bit sluggish because it doesn't support ALL Dos
5.0 commands.

|> 3) has a built-in editor for simple text processing (notes, not fancy stuff)

MS Works is fine for that. Can print acceptable documents via parallel port 
on HP printers which I verified. Others mentioned by the drivers,  but I didn't 
test them with the ZEOS. 

|> 4) can be a terminal (tty, optimally ansi/vt100 sans keypad)

MS Works is allright for that also. I just couldn't get binary XMODEM work 
so the file transfer is TEXT only. 

|> I don't want spreadsheets, hard or floppy drives, backlit displays,
|> time management, tetris, etc.

You will also get spreadsheets and graphics in the ZEOS which I liked somehow, 
as I do a lot of WINGZ  on the workstation it is nice to have a bit of 
homework exported and play around for evaluating matters. 


I am quite pleased with the ZEOS, but I'd like to plug in a ethernet 
adapter on the parallel port and run PATHWORKS on it. Anyone tried 
this before? 


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