The HP-75C and HP-75D were hand-held computers programmable in

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

, made by

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

from 1982 to 1986. The HP-75 had a single-line

liquid crystal display A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat panel display, flat-panel display or other Electro-optic modulator, electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liqui ...

, 48

KiB The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

system

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...

and 16 KiB RAM, a comparatively large keyboard (albeit without a separate numeric pad), a manually operated magnetic card reader (2×650 bytes per card), 4 ports for memory expansion (1 for RAM and 3 for ROM modules), and an

HP-IL The HP-IL (''Hewlett-Packard Interface Loop''), was a short-range interconnection bus or network introduced by Hewlett-Packard in the early 1980s. It enabled many devices such as printers, plotters, displays, storage devices (floppy disk drives ...

interface that could be used to connect printers, storage and electronic test equipment. The BASIC interpreter also acted as a primitive operating system, providing file handling capabilities for program storage using

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Ra ...

, cards, or cassettes/diskettes (via HP-IL). 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 with an

MSRP The list price, also known as the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), or the recommended retail price (RRP), or the suggested retail price (SRP) of a product is the price at which its manufacturer notionally recommends that a retailer ...

of $995 ($2,014 in 2005) for the 75C or $1095 ($2,058 in 2005) for the 75D, making it less popular than the cheaper successor model, the

HP-71B The HP-71B was a hand-held computer or calculator programmable in BASIC, made by Hewlett-Packard from 1984 to 1989. Description Smaller and less expensive (US$595 $525 in 1984 ≈ $990 in 2005 (seInflation Conversion Factors for Dollars) MSRP) ...

. The HP-75C has a KANGAROOMoHPC
/ref> printed on its

PCB PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant * Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics * ...

, as its

codename A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a Code word (figure of speech), code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may ...

(see link for picture). HP-75D codename's is MERLIN.

Reception

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

'' praised the flexibility of the appointment scheduler, which the review noted could comprise part of a real-time control system because of its ability to execute BASIC programs. It concluded that the computer "is a well-integrated and powerful machine ... if you are interested in ... a very portable computer with powerful real-time scheduling capabilities, you should look closely at the HP-75".

References

External links

HP-75 at the MoHPC

HP Journal, June 1983
Article about the HP-75C design, the IL interface and the card reader *Some nice internal views a
MyCalcDB
(see the Kangaroo on the

) 75C D Pocket computers Products introduced in 1982 {{hardware-stub