HP-75

The HP-75C and HP-75D were hand-held computers programmable in BASIC, made by Hewlett-Packard from 1982 to 1986.

The HP-75 had a single-line liquid crystal display, 48 KiB system ROM and 16 KiB RAM, a comparatively large keyboard (albeit without separate numeric pad), a manually operated magnetic card reader (2×650 bytes per card), a plug-in port for memory expansion, and an HP-IL interface that could be used to connect printers, storage and electronic test equipment. The BASIC interpreter included file handling capabilities, using RAM, cards or cassettes/diskettes (via HP-IL) for program storage.

Other features included a text editor as well as an appointment reminder with alarms, similar to functions of modern PDAs.

The HP-75D (1984-1986) added a port for a bar code wand, often used for inventory control tasks.

The HP-75 was comparatively expensive at $995 [$995 in 1982 ≈ $2,014 in 2005 (see [http://oregonstate.edu/cla/polisci/faculty/sahr/sahr.htm Inflation Conversion Factors for Dollars] )] (75C) or $1095 [$1,095 in 1984 ≈ $2,058 in 2005] (75D) MSRP, making it less popular than the cheaper successor model, the HP-71B.

Miscellanea

The internal code name for the 75C at HP was "Kangaroo", the 75D was nicknamed "Merlin".

Notes

External links

* [http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp75.htm HP-75 at the MoHPC]
* [http://www.hp41.org/LibView.cfm?Command=View&ItemID=177 HP Journal, June 1983] Article about the HP-75C design, the IL interface and the card reader
*Some nice internal views at [http://mycalcdb.free.fr/main.php?l=0&id=818 MyCalcDB] (see the Kangaroo on the PCB)