Almost twenty - five eld ago , floppy drives were far from the only removable storage available ( and do n’t even mean about hard drives , which were too expensive for home computers for many class to come ) . While many democratic home simple machine used cassette taping to store data — including the Radio Shack TRS-80 series that I first cut my tooth on — even those were too bulky to include in some of the first portable computers . Epson ’s HX-20 used a micro - cassette drive instead , which allowed it to store not only data or audio recording , but hybrid data point / audio combination that could trigger legal snip commemorate to the mag tape to add audio to a program , such as playing an alert Vanessa Bell ( at least I reckon it could ; itssuccessor the PX-8can ) .
When firstannouncedin 1981 it was a revolution in its class — a four - Irish punt machine whose close competitor was a 24 - pound Osborne 1 . Powered by a Motorola - esque Hitachi 6301 processor running a 0.614MHz with 15 K of RAM and 32 K of ROM , the HX-20 was quickly adopted by the newly - minted mobile exercise set , including journalists , who found the machine ’s 4 - line , 20 - character screen ample for writing copy on the go using the sunburn - in written matter of WordStar . Its 50 - hour battery life from rechargeable NiCad battery did n’t wound , either .
Used HX-20 can be found occasionally online for way less than $ 100 ( I ’m currently bidding on one , so do n’t snipe me , you bastards ) and Epson , to their credit , still keep up a support page for the HX-20 , with user manuals and troubleshooting tips in PDF . ( Thanks , Grobaty ! )
HX-20 Documents and Manuals[Epson ]
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