From: anthony@yarra-glen.aaii.oz.au (Anthony Baxter)
Subject: Review: Amstrad NC-100 Notepad computer
Organization: Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 09:07:37 GMT

Anthony Stieber suggested there might be some interest in this, so heres
a review of the new Amstrad NC-100. All the following is my own opinion,
of course.

The Notepad is not a bad little machine, all things considered. Its price
(here, Aust$400, about US$290) is quite low, it has a full sized keyboard
(which was a major consideration in my buying it), and not a bad set of
software shipped in it.

The display is 8 lines by 80 columns, 64x480 pixels, and is an LCD screen.
Its not lit at all, which would have been nice, but oh well...

The keyboard is almost a full keyboard, in a setup similar to that which
I've seen on a lot of other British machines (the " is a shifted 2, while
the key to the right of the ; has the ' and the @ on it - a minor difference
to what I'm used to, but I can cope with it.) A more serious ommission is
the lack of a backquote (ascii 96) key. We got around this in the word
processing package by binding <symbol>B to be backquote. 

Ok, the software. It comes with a variety of software inbuilt: a word
processor, a calculator, a diary/appointment scheduler, an alarm scheduler,
an address book, a serial communications package (with Xmodem support built
in), a "password protected" data storage, and a mostly complete subset of 
BBC Basic. 

The word processing package is ok, I guess. I've been spoiled by using more
powerful editors on unix boxes, so it doesnt really grab me. I can use it,
though.

The calculator is pretty basic, and also rebinds the keyboard to make a
bunch of keys in the middle of the keyboard act as a numberpad. It
unfortunately doesnt still allow the normal number keys to still work, which
would have been nice. Its a standard +-*/% M+ M- MRC sqrt type calculator,
12 significant digits.

The diary is nice. You can scroll around the current month, scrolling of the
left or right moves to the previous or next month, scrolling off the top or
bottom moves to the same month in the previous or next year. Any days that
have anything entered have a mark next to them in the overall month view.
Selecting a day drops you into the wordprocessing package, and allows you to
edit your entry for that day. When you fire the machine up on a day when
there is something in the diary for that day, it will flash a message up
reminding you of this.

I must admit I havent used the alarm clock facility of it seriously, I've
played with it a bit. You can set alarms for a particular time and date, or
set the for a time to repeat every day. A bit more functionality wouldnt
have gone astray here, but what it has is adequate for most people, I
suspect. If an alarm comes due while the computer is off, it switches on and
beeps for about 10 seconds, one a second - if it is still left, it goes into
what I've dubbed the 'Oi! Listen to me!' mode, and beeps quite frequently
for about 40 seconds or so, just to be subtle. It doesnt seem to then switch
itself off after an unacknowledged alarm, which I consider a BUG. (makes it
easy to run the batteries down :-(

The address book allows you to enter about 6 lines, with about 40
characters, for each entry. You can search through it for any of the data,
not just the first line. Its stored in a reasonably simple format (details
availiable on request) which means it should be easy to import your address
book from another application, if necessary.

The comms package is adequate, except for the problem that what would
normally be 'escape' is actually the key to get out of the package. There
may be a way around this, but I havent yet found it. It should be easy
enough to write a replacement in BBC basic. Once we had got the serial lines
set up properly, we've got transfers in both directions working between
notepads and suns, and notepads and decstations at up to 9600bps. It seemed
to have problems keeping the DTR alive, but since this was just fed back on
the sun side, it wasnt a problem.

The "password protected data" is probably ok for not-very-high security
stuff, and would be enough to keep the casual meddler out. When you hit 
<function> and <secret>, you are either (if you havent yet entered a
password) prompted to enter a new password, or prompted to enter the
existing password. The password is 4 characters, which is case insensitive.
It would be nice to be able to protect arbitrary documents. You can also
lock the machine, again with the same 4 character password. 

The BBC basic is missing the more advanced of the sound and graphics
commands, it does have support for inline assembler (in this case, Z80) but
the manual contains only the following on the subject of assembler
programming:
We would warn people not familiar with machine code programming to avoid
attempting to use the assembler feature as it will almost certainly lead to
a machine crash and a loss of data.

Some stats on it:
Size:
Slightly less than an A4 page, about 20mm thick.
Weight:
Dunno, not that heavy (a lot less than a Macintosh system 7 manual)
a few hundred grams, maybe.
Memory:
64Kbytes, expandable via PCMCIA cards to 1M. Dont know if it will accept
eprom flash cards or srams - I will enquire. Of the 64Kb, about 15Kb is used
for various system things (such as screen memory, I'd guess)
Power:
a lithium battery for memory power, 4 AA batteries or 6V DC power (powerpack
and one set of batteries supplied) It hasnt run down its batteries in the week 
I've had it, dont know how long they will last.
Also comes with a carry pouch, a not-so-bad manual (although I'd prefer more
technical details, eg a memory map :)

Its definately a machine oriented more towards the novice than the
experienced user, however, its major advantages for me are its price, the
fact it has a fullsize keyboard, and its small size.

If anyone wants any more details, please let me know.

Anthony.
From: rrd@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Ray Depew)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 15:19:21 GMT
Subject: Re: where can I mail order a modem for my HP95
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA