🚀 go-pugleaf

> In the mid-seventies, IBM brought out an early desktop
> computer called the 5100.  It had a one-line display with
> room for about 24 characters.  A toggle switch selected
> one of two languages, BASIC and APL.

I think  the 5100 had a small  CRT  (like  about  5") and it did  have a
toggle for selecting APL or BASIC (but I think you had to cycle  power).
We got to look at one at Iowa  State  when  they  first  came out and we
popped  the thing  open - it  looked  like a  spaghetti  factory  on the
inside.

> Years later I heard a rumor that explained how they could
> generate a solid new APL implementation in such a short
> time.  The 5100 used the IBM 1130 instruction set as its
> internal micro-machine!  .......

I  understood  that the 5100 was based on a small  360  chipset.  (Which
also had a reasonable APL implementation.)

A single line 24 character machine (which might be what you are thinking
of)  was a  machine  that  HP  introduced  in the  mid  70s  called  the
9825/9831.  The 9825 was an HPL machine  (instead of APL).  HPL (Hewlett
Packard Language) is a language based on earlier calculator  programming
languages)  machine.  The 9831 was the same  computer  with a  different
system ROM (which was located in a removeable  drawer on the  right-hand
side) that let it speak  BASIC.  They were pretty cute.  These  machines
were based on a 16 bit CPU that HP made called the BPC (binary processor
chip) which was a re-implementation  of the HP 1000 computer line (which
was around in the late 60s and  descendants are still being sold today).


Tim Mikkelsen