Pocket Computers of the 1980's

The birth of Pocket Computers

The arrival of Pocket Computers in the 1980's

The interesting thing about this Small PCs (Small PC will mean Pocket Computer in this area of my Web Site, not to be confused with Big PC which will mean standard and common Personal Computer) is that they are the precursors of the current Handheld PCs and palmtops. They integrate many very interesting features : 8 bit processor (that's old fashioned, isn't it?), a built in Basic interpreter and, for some of them, a real machine language.
So, in such a small PC, you find yourself with a real computer, but since it is smaller you can much faster understand the real way a computer works... and that is where fun begins !

The Radio Shack TRS-80 Pocket Computer

This computer is the ancestor of all pocket computers so far. I arrived on the market in the early 1980's.
The TRS-80 Pocket Computer is the clone of the Sharp PC-1211 sold under the brand of Radio Shack. Included in its name is TRS-80 but it has nothing to do with the computers sold using this name at that time by Radio Shack. Let's say that it is a well found marketing name for this Small PC.

aldweb's competence center about the TRS-80 Pocket Computer

The Sharp Pocket Computer PC-1360

Sharp has manufactured a wide range of pocket computers based on the 8 bits SC61860 processor. These are the Sharp PC-12xx (but not the PC-121x serie), PC-13xx and PC-14xx.
The PC-1360 is the most sophisticated of these Small PCs : it has a "wide" display of 4 lines, external RAM cards, a full list of accessories (thermal printer, cassette interface, a real diskette drive...).

aldweb's competence center about the Sharp PC-1360

PockASM, aldweb's free SC61860 macro assembler for your Sharp Pocket Computer
(not only the Sharp PC-1360)