Hello, and welcome to another episode of the 8-Bit Guy.
Today, I want to show you a rather unusual line of portable computers known as the laser
portable computers and these were manufactured from the mid 1980s all the way up to the late
1990s.
These were produced by V-tech, which is the same company that produces most of the kids
toy type electronics like this, and they also produced the Laser 128 and XT which were portable
clones of the Apple II and IBM PC.
They also made some other interesting computers of their own, which I will feature in a separate
episode.
So let’s start with the original model from 1985, the Laser 50 Personal Computer.
According to the box, it’s the BASIC learning tool that teaches you BASIC.
So let’s take it out of the box and see what it does.
One thing I really like about this computer is the manual.
It’s extremely friendly and down to earth and it really tries to teach you how to use
BASIC.
It reminds me of the Commodore VIC-20 users manual.
It also has a lot of example type in BASIC programs in the back.
On the bottom it has some extendable little legs that will prop the keyboard and screen
up slightly.
This is a memory expansion socket.
It can take up to 16K of RAM in here.
Of course, this is the battery compartment and it will run on 4 double-A batteries.
On the rear there is a 6V power input and a jack for connecting up a cassette recorder
to load and save your programs.
And this connector here is for a printer.
it also has a little carry handle that you could carry it around with.
So let’s power it on and see how it works.
So it doesn’t show much at first.
It has seveal modes of operation if you look over to the right of the screen.
The two main modes are computer and calculator.
And the way you switch is by pressing the mode button and then a number like one or
two.
You can see a tiny text on the screen change from comp to calc and so on.
Typing in BASIC is somewhat of a challenge as you have a 16 character by one line screen
to work with . The screen will automatically scroll over as you type.
However, they give you these left-to-right arrows to help you see the entire lines of
BASIC.
The BASIC dialect itself is a little different from what I was used to and took me several
tries to make programs work correctly without syntax errors.
In fact, some of the more common commands in BASIC are actually missing on this machine.
So here’s a little example program I made.
It’s just 3 lines.
It asks what your name is.
Of course, if you want to see the whole sentence, you have to scroll over.
Anyway, then once you input your name, it will tell you hello.
I also wrote this little program that creates random beeps.
So let’s look at the keyboard..
I hate the placement of the SPACE key..
I keep hitting it when I mean to press SHIFT.
But also, that’s just a really tacky place for the SPACE.
Also, when in calculator mode, many of the keys shift around.
For example, even when I hold down the shift key, the paranthesis don’t work.
I have to use the special calculator keys for that.
So if I want to see what the SINE of 32 is, then I have to use these special parenthesis
over here.
Otherwise, it is a very capable scientific calculator.
So, a natural comparison to make with this would be one of Radio Shack’s pocket computers.
And, while the pocket computer is smaller, I think the Laser50 is actually a better computer.
Let’s open it up and have a look inside.
It is surprisingly spartan inside.
Being this was made in 1985 and that the specs say it has a Z80 processor, I was expecting
to see individual chips such as a CPU, ROM, and RAM.
However, it appears there are only 3 chips in the thing, these two here appear to drive
the LCD as well as the keyboard matrix.. and one of them must contain the CPU as well.
Down here there is a 2K static RAM chip, and that’s all there is in this thing.
Believe it or not, this is the actual screen here.
And along with it you have a polarizer and this metal reflector that goes behind..
Oh, look at that, I have the polarizer on backwards.
So yeah, this is actually how LCD screens can be inverted to be positive or negative,
simply by changing the orientation of the polarizer.
Let’s look at this accessory sheet that came with it.
So you can see some of the available accessories were a custom cassette recorder, a 4-color
plotter, or alternatively a small thermal printer.
And don’t forget the 16K RAM expansion.
And while I have not been able to find the original price for this computer, the order
sheet has some pricing for some of the accessories and these were probably pretty cheap accessories
for the time.
So, considering this thing runs on the same CPU core as a ZX81, or as we call it in the
United States, the Timex Sinclair 1000, and has about the same amount of memory as well,
I would venture to say this computer probably cost somewhere between $100 to $150.
So, I am not entirely sure who the target audience was.
But, you know, I would have loved to have something like this as a kid to take to Grandma’s
house or on a road trip or something like that to keep me entertained.
However, admittedly, with a lack of 3rd party software and with the tiny screen it’s kind
of limited functionality as to what you could really do with it, so it might have become
boring after a while.
On the other hand, this would have been great for people in scientific or engineering fields,
especially if you were working out in the field and you had a very specific set of calculations
you needed to run on a regular basis.
This thing will store up to 10 BASIC programs at a time.
So you could setup specific BASIC programs to run whatever calculations you needed to
run on a regular basis and you could even print them out if you had the printer.
Now, one thing I should mention though is that you can’t type more than about 20 words
per minute on this, or it starts either repeating characters or just skipping characters.
The keyboard matrix algorithms don’t seem to be able to tolerate faster typing.
So a few years later in 1988, they followed this thing up with an entire series of portable
computers for every budget.
We’ll start by looking at the Laser Compumate 1.
It’s hard to actually call this thing a computer.
It does have 8K of RAM and runs on a Z80 processor, but it only does three functions, a spell
checker, calculator, and telephone directory.
One thing you may notice is that they tried to stay with the same size keyboard as the
Laser50, only this time you get a real space bar, but they have removed the row of number
keys from the top.
However, I do consider that to be an improvement for typing.
If you want to press a number, you have to use the virtual number pad here.
So let’s pick one for spell check.
So you can already see it suffers from the same problem as the Laser50 when it comes
to not being able to type quickly.
Let’s try a little experiment.
Ok, so I didn’t actually make any typing mistakes there, but you can see it didn’t
come out well.
The calculator is really nothing to brag about either.
It doesn’t even have any advanced scientific functions like the Laser50 did.
And so let’s briefly take a look at the phone book.
It’s not very clear what is going on here, I had to actually look at the manual to figure
it out.
Overall, this part of the system kind of stinks too.
It does have a 12V Dc port on the back, and you can remove this door for RAM expansion,
although I can’t imagine why 8K wouldn’t be sufficient for this thing.
And it does have a little reference guide on the bottom here.
And it runs on 4 AA batteries.
So, moving along let’s take a look at the Laser PC3.
This one has a full keyboard, at least, with a real space bar and number keys too.
Powering it on, you can see it has 32K of RAM and a much nicer 2-line display.
And you can see it has 10 built-in applications.
The one I find most fascinating is the word-processor.
I had a hard time believing you could write and edit documents on a 20 by 2 line LCD display.
However, apparently you can.
Its not exactly what I’d call fun, though.
It also suffers from not being able to handle fast typing, as you can see.
However, if you try to keep your typing speed down to about 20 words per minute, it seems
to be able to keep up with that.
The irony behind this is that one of the applications on here is a typing tutor, designed to help
you learn to type faster.
I guess if you can only type 10 words a minute, then great, it will help you get to 20.
But don’t bother trying to go any faster than 20.
So, I guess you could take this to Starbucks and write up your memoirs, school reports,
or whatever it is people go there to do.
But don’t expect it to be easy to transfer the document off to your PC.
It does have an alarm clock on here.
I’m going to try setting the time, one of the things I’m wondering about is how it
will handle the year 2017 considering it defaults to 1988.
Well, it does take it, althoug we can easily say it is not year-2000 compliant since it
only uses 2 digits.
You can also configure the way you want the date and time to be displayed on screen, which
is pretty cool.
So let’s look at the back.
So it has a communications port, which is used for a printer or connecting to your home
PC.
It also has a cassette port so you can load and save your documents to tape.
So that’s pretty cool.
I’d hate to fill up that 32K and not have a backup somewhere.
And, a standard 12V power port.
On the bottom you’ve got the battery compartment, and that same RAM expansion as the previous
model.
And here’s the cable it came with for connecting up a standard Centronics style parallel printer.
I say standard, that was standard at the time.
I do not have the cable necessary to connect this to your PC and transfer data.
So, one of the menus it has is a communication menu, and there seem to be a lot of things
you can configure here about serial ports, printer ports, connecting to your PC, etc.
One interesting thing is it has an option for dialing.
And I did notice on the side that there were little knock-out sections labelled for telephone
jacks.
So presumably this was available with a built-in modem.
So, I can only imagine the torture of dialing into an online service using a 20x2 character
LCD screen.
But, you know, I guess in a pinch it’d be better than nothing.
So moving on to the high end unit, the PC4.
This one has a larger screen and also the nicest keyboard of all of the units.
When powering this one on, you’ll see it has 128K, quite a bit a RAM for a system like
this.
It has quite a few different applications built in.
Let’s start with the calculator.
This one does at least give us the advanced scientific functions.
And the word processor is a little bit less of a joke since you have a screen large enough
to actually see what you are typing on.
it also includes BASIC, so you can write your own programs.
That is what makes this computer significantly better than the previous two, in my opinion.
However, BASIC appears to be much of an afterthought on this computer.
In fact, this machine has a really thick manual, but unlike the laser50 manual which was almost
entirely devoted to teaching you BASIC.
This little section of the manual here is all that it has even mentioning BASIC.
In fact, I find it interesting that it doesn’t even mention all of the available commands.
As an example, I didn’t even know this machine had a sound command until I just tried it
out of curiosity.
It uses the same format as the old Laser50.
Typing on this machine is really comfortable as the keyboard has a really nice feel to
it.
However, it does suffer from the same problem as the other machines in that about 20 words
per minute is the maximum it will accept.
It might be a natural thing to compare this unit to the old Tandy portable series.
And it has some significant advantages.
For example, the built-in software that comes on the Laser is so much better than the Tandy
that words just can’t describe.
And the Laser has 128K versus 24K in the Tandy.
Also the contrast on the Laser is a litte sharper and easier to read, but the Tandy
has a bigger screen, plus the screen is capable of doing graphics.
And from a programming perspective, the BASIC is better on the Tandy as well as you can
do assembly language programs on this too.
So, from a programming perspective, this is the better machine.
So let’s have a look at the bottom.
So it uses the same 4 AA battery configuration.
And it has this same port, but it turns out this isn’t for memory expansion after all.
According to the manual on this thing, it is for additional program ROMs.
So most likely that is what it was for on the other machines too. of course, it has
the same expansion port for printer and PC interface, but it seems to be lacking the
cassette connection, even though it is still labelled on the back.
And it has the same 12V power input.
Also the manual shows that it uses a Z80 processor running at 3.58 Mhz, which is interesting.
So you might think a machine like this could be a great machine for typing up documents
in a more distraction free way since you can’t be tempted to open Facebook or check your
email.
And, while that would almost be true, except that it is such a pain to get the stuff you’ve
written transferred over to a modern computer.
As such, when I need distraction free writing, I tend to grab one of my iBook G3 computers
since it is too slow to really use the internet these days, but at least it’s new enough
that I can copy my finished document over the wireless network or onto a USB stick.
OK, so moving ahead, this is the last model of Laser portable computer, which came out
in the late 1990s.
Now, this one has a much nicer bit-mapped graphical screen.
So let’s take a look at the word processor.
Notice it has this really big 40-column font.
But you can press the 40/80 key here and it will alternate between 40 and 80 columns,
I guess depending on how good your eyesight is.
But The 80 column by 8 line display is actually quite adequate for word processing.
The calculator is not bad, also retaining the scientific functions.
It has a homework calendar, suggesting this product was marketed towards schools.
And, It has a spreadsheet, but nothing notable to really say about it.
Now here’s where things get interesting to me, anyway.
On the rear you’ll notice it has the same printer and data interface as the previous
models, and it has a DC input.
But it also has a video output.
However, I can’t find anything about it.
The users manual only mentions it one time right here, just saying that you need an optional
video converter.
The bottom has that same expansion module port.
And the usual 4 AA batteries.
But I was kind of interested to see what is under here.
The last model had a similar looking area.
So I decided to investigate.
So it turns out there is a flash memory chip, probably containing the firmware.
But also some really nasty corroded battery cells.
So, looking inside, you’ll see the screen and keyboard here, and over here is the logic
board.
So you have the firmware and the system memory here.
But the more interesting bits are here.
This is a somewhat modernized Z80 compatible processor, along with the LCD video controller
and the video RAM chip.
I was hoping to uncover something about that video output jack, but just didn’t come
up with anything.
So, that’s too bad about the video port.
I think given time I could figure out if it is some kind of composite or S-video signal
in there.
I could probably sort it out using some oscilloscope or something like that.
I really just don’t have the time for it.
And it may actually require some additional external circuitry, so it may be a lost cause.
So, I’m just not going to worry about it.
While I had it opened I did take the opportunity to remove these corroded cells,since they
are obviously dead.
at least they won’t be leaking anymore.
In fact, there is virtually no information on any of these Laser portable computers.
It’s really hard to find anything out about them at all, both from a historical standpoint
or from a technical standpoint.
In fact, pretty much everything I’ve shown you in this video is about all that’s known,
at least publicly, about them.
In fact, I’ve never even heard of this line until Andrew Craner donated this PC4 to me
late last year.
Then I got kind of interested in it so I started trying to collect the rest of the series so
I ended up with these to go along with it.
Now, interestingly enough, the Laser50 is not hard to find.
You can find these all over ebay and they generally run $20, $30, $40 Dollars.
So they’re not hard to find.
The rest of these, particularly, the PC4, PC5, and the PC6 are tough to find.
They rarely show up on ebay.
They’re not particularly valuable, they’re just hard to find.
So, anyway, thank you for watching and I hope you found this interesting.
And I hope you find what I have coming up next interesting, so stick around for that
and I’ll se you next time.