What is the best BASIC Pocket Computer

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(04-10-2014 03:32 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  Here's a question that occurred to me today: are there any particularly good programmable calculator/development environments for Windows CE? There are tons of old H/PC models available, and I've got a MobilePro 900 with a big keyboard that could be used to great effect.

Dave,

The MobilePro units were great units. I had one of the 700 series along with a HP-620 CE unit. The MobilePro had great keyboards and also a fairly large screen. I used mine to do load calc takeoff of drawings using the Excel spreadsheet.

Your question about programming languages led me to research my files for the HP-620LX. Thought I had discarded them some time ago, but found them on a archive disc.

I have the following languages for the HP-620LX which may work on the MoblePro:
(I'm not sure which processor each used)

BasiCE (Both SH3 & MIPS)
SQUEAK CE (Smalltalk) (SH3 only)
XLISP (Probably SH3 only)
POCKETC (Probably SH3 only)

Let me know if you are interested in the files.

You might also try searching for a commercial product called
NS BASIC/CE. Their web page says it is retired:

NS Basic

It's interesting in that you could develop both on the PC and the CE units.

Bill

[robert rozee]

(04-05-2014 06:42 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  

(04-05-2014 01:18 PM)robert rozee Wrote:  how about an HP-95LX set up to boot straight into a suitable basic interpreter? you get a 40x16 screen that beats anything else, a tonne of memory, and can backup to a removable card. plus a serial port too.

personally, i prefer the 95LX over the 200LX series due to the 95's far more readable screen.


rob :-)

The trouble with the 95LX is that it isn't a full 80x25 text display like a standard MS-DOS machine, so you have to deal with hot key combinations to pan the screen. The 100LX and 200LX will present a full screen of text, but it's pretty tiny.

the original posting didn't make any mention of an 80x25 screen or a need to run MSDOS programs. i'm thinking of a 95LX that is set up to take the user directly to a BASIC development environment. when set up thus - without any need or means to exit to DOS, a 95LX would make a nice BASIC Pocket Computer with a 40x16 screen and full keyboard that blows away the likes of the casio FX-850 and others.

while impractical at the original sale price, given a 95LX can be had for less than $100 on ebay it seems like a cost-effective and quite practical choice. just forget about it being an MSDOS machine below the BASIC environment.

rob :-)

[Nick_S]

HP95LX is great pocket computer. I found using Turbo Pascal for this computer to be an excellent way to develop. It would be fine for text based applications and there must be a good choice of Basic interpreters.

On the other hand, Bill's suggestion, of a Windows CE pocket computer such as a HP-620LX sounds good, if it can run Squeak Smalltalk and XLisp, as one can use a nice environment and high-level language to develop more graphical applications with a modern user interface.

Nick

[Thomas Radtke]

Unfortunately the 95LX consumes batteries as if there's no tomorrow.

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

I know Namir had asked about vintage pocket computers, but there is a way to go which involves both modern and vintage. For the Android phone & tablets, we have the nice Sharp Pocket Computer Emulators. These work fine on the larger screen phones we have today. The downside is that, unless your phone has a keyboard, your stuck with the touch screen input. But they do work well.

To deviate from "vintage", the android phones/tablets make nice development platforms. I have the following programming languages installed on mine:

rfo-basic
X11 Basic
PascalGUI
Pepe le compiler (Pascal)

Most provide an integrated environment and can access many capabilities of the phone/tablet hardware.

Bill

[robert rozee]

(04-12-2014 06:56 AM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  Unfortunately the 95LX consumes batteries as if there's no tomorrow.

20+ hours battery life - once the capacitor that causes the 'low battery' warning has been replaced. this is quite comparable to the battery life of modern handheld computing devices being talked about in the thread, though admittedly not a patch on that of the sharps and casios of long ago.

[Waon Shinyoe]

IMHO SHARP G850 series is the best one though it aims at education market. It supports BASIC, on-calc C and ASM and machine code. (Though the soft keyboard is annoying...)

[Dave Britten]

Back to the GW-BASIC-on-95LX-or-100/200LX debate, I took a couple comparison photos (OmniBook 300 pictured in the background, since that's where I wrote the program):

200LX in zoomed mode

200LX in full (80x25) mode

There's also a mid-sized font available that looks pretty good. Fn-Space cycles through the three zoom levels.

The 95LX does have a slight legibility advantage compared to the zoomed font on the 200LX, but the 200LX beats it in speed (about twice as fast), and battery life. Not to mention storage and compatibility and whatnot. Both are quite suitable for GW-BASIC, but the 95LX doesn't support any of the graphics or sound commands, since it doesn't do standard CGA video modes. Evidently the beeper is non-standard as well.

I believe QBASIC also works on the 95LX (don't know about the full QuickBASIC), but the same graphics and sound restrictions apply.

And if anybody is interested in the factors program I used for testing, I'll gladly post the code.

EDIT: This algorithm takes about 66 seconds for the same input on my 48SX.

[Guenter Schink]

(04-15-2014 04:19 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  And if anybody is interested in the factors program I used for testing, I'll gladly post the code.

EDIT: This algorithm takes about 66 seconds for the same input on my 48SX.

Another interesting BASIC is UBASIC I think. Here's a description and here a working download.

On the 200LX adding the numbers from 1 to 10,000 takes 4.176 sec. Adding the LOG(i) for i from 1 to 1000 takes 8.596 sec.

Your factors program would be interesting to compare.

Günter

[Dave Britten]

(04-15-2014 10:03 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote:  Your factors program would be interesting to compare.

Here you go, prime factors in GW-BASIC. I haven't done any real performance tuning, apart from selecting an algorithm that's more efficient than "2 plus all the odd numbers".

Code:

5 DEFDBL X,F,M
10 INPUT "X=";X
15 ST=TIMER
20 M=INT(SQR(X))
30 F=0
40 DATA 2,1,2,2
50 FOR I=1 TO 4
60 READ S:GOSUB 500
70 NEXT I
100 IF X<=1 THEN 900
105 DATA 4,2,4,2,4,6,2,6
110 FOR I=1 TO 8
120 READ S:GOSUB 500
130 NEXT I
140 RESTORE 105
190 IF F>M THEN F=X:S=0:GOSUB 500
200 GOTO 100
500 F=F+S
510 IF X/F<>INT(X/F) THEN RETURN
520 X=X/F
530 M=INT(SQR(X))
540 PRINT F;
550 GOTO 510
900 ET=TIMER:PRINT
910 PRINT "Execution time: ";
920 PRINT USING "####.####";ET-ST;:PRINT "s"
930 END

[Don Shepherd]

Ah, Dave, I recognize that algorithm, it eliminates all multiples of 2, 3, and 5 from the trial factor pool. I remember when you modified that from the HP-67 version, as I recall, for the 32s and one of the algebraic programmable pioneers (20?). I further modified it to get it to run on the venerable 12c. A great algorithm!

Don

[Dave Britten]

(04-16-2014 12:57 AM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  Ah, Dave, I recognize that algorithm, it eliminates all multiples of 2, 3, and 5 from the trial factor pool. I remember when you modified that from the HP-67 version, as I recall, for the 32s and one of the algebraic programmable pioneers (20?). I further modified it to get it to run on the venerable 12c. A great algorithm!

Don

Yup, that's the one! I just keep dragging it along to each new machine I get. It strikes a great balance between size and performance for the problem space that one could conceivably need to compute on a handheld (I don't plan to factor RSA keys on my 48, anyway). The implementation also allows for a nice, concise example of fetching input/arguments, looping, calling subroutines, and outputting results.

Maybe I should set up a site like Viktor's and port this routine to everything imaginable, as opposed to the Gamma function. Probably wouldn't make for a very elegant Lotus 1-2-3 macro, though. (But then again, what does?)

[Nick_S]

(04-15-2014 04:19 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  Back to the GW-BASIC-on-95LX-or-100/200LX debate, I took a couple comparison photos ...

Thanks, it seems that if one is happy with text I/O, then the 95LX has the clearer screen. The non-standard aspect ratio of the 100/200LX is going to have some odd effects for graphical displays (which I guess was true of most early laptops such as the Toshibas).

Nick

[Guenter Schink]

(04-16-2014 12:47 AM)Dave Britten Wrote:  Here you go, prime factors in GW-BASIC. I haven't done any real performance tuning, apart from selecting an algorithm that's more efficient than "2 plus all the odd numbers".

OK there where only minor changes to the code necessary. Deleted line 5, as UBASIC calculates long variables with a size of 542 words (whatever that is ) and timing (line 15 and 920) has a different syntax.

Code:

   10   input "X=";X
   15   clr time
   20   M=int(sqrt(X))
   30   F=0
   40   data 2,1,2,2
   50   for I=1 to 4
   60   read S:gosub 500
   70   next I
  100   if X<=1 then 900
  105   data 4,2,4,2,4,6,2,6
  110   for I=1 to 8
  120   read S:gosub 500
  130   next I
  140   restore 105
  190   if F>M then F=X:S=0:gosub 500
  200   goto 100
  500   F=F+S
  510   if X/F<>int(X/F) then return
  520   X=X/F
  530   M=int(sqrt(X))
  540   print F;
  550   goto 510
  900   print
  910   print "Execution time: ";
  920   print time1000/1000;:print "s"
  930   end

Your example of 167699497 is calculated in about 2.4 seconds

Günter

[Dave Britten]

(04-16-2014 08:23 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote:  Your example of 167699497 is calculated in about 2.4 seconds

Günter

Nice! Is that on a 200LX?

[Guenter Schink]

(04-16-2014 08:45 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 08:23 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote:  Your example of 167699497 is calculated in about 2.4 seconds

Günter

Nice! Is that on a 200LX?

Sorry that I forgot to include this detail. Yes, that's on a 200LX.

BTW another challenge that GW-Basic most probably is not able to solve: 167699497123456789 in 604.531 seconds on the 200LX with UBASIC

Günter

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(04-16-2014 09:16 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 08:45 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  Nice! Is that on a 200LX?

Sorry that I forgot to include this detail. Yes, that's on a 200LX.

BTW another challenge that GW-Basic most probably is not able to solve: 167699497123456789 in 604.531 seconds on the 200LX with UBASIC

Günter

I just did the test (167699497) on a HP-200LX running GW-Basic and Basica. Both took about 9.3-9.5 seconds. So UBASIC is quite a bit faster.

I've never heard of UBASIC. With this speed difference. I need to check it out.

Bill

[Thomas Radtke]

(04-12-2014 07:51 PM)robert rozee Wrote:  20+ hours battery life - once the capacitor that causes the 'low battery' warning has been replaced.

Ok, I've worked a couple of hours on a fresh set of batteries, had the 95LX off for some weeks and the batteries as well as the backup button cell were emptied. Guess it was entirely my fault to expect longer run/standby-times. Still interesting enough for the powerful Lotus 1-2-3 alone to get a PSU.

Anyway, I found your nice article about this topic.

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(04-17-2014 07:06 AM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  

(04-12-2014 07:51 PM)robert rozee Wrote:  20+ hours battery life - once the capacitor that causes the 'low battery' warning has been replaced.

Ok, I've worked a couple of hours on a fresh set of batteries, had the 95LX off for some weeks and the batteries as well as the backup button cell were emptied. Guess it was entirely my fault to expect longer run/standby-times. Still interesting enough for the powerful Lotus 1-2-3 alone to get a PSU.

Anyway, I found your nice article about this topic.

You might want to try using Everyready Lithium AA Batteries. They will last a lot longer than standard AA batteries. They cost more, but I can usually find them on sale for about half price several times a year and I stock up on them at the lower price. I use tem in my HP-200LX and in my Omnibook OB-430.

Do you have a card inserted in your HP-95LX. If so, it may be draining your batteries faster.

Bill

[Dave Britten]

On the subject of HP palmtops, does anybody know where to find a copy of the (presumably long discontinued/abandoned) Swift!BASIC? It sounds like it was tailor-made for the 95LX.

http://www.palmtoppaper.com/ptphtml/4/ptp40068.htm