HP-150

Touchscreen of the HP Series 100 HP-150

The HP-150 was a "compact, powerful and innovative" computer made by Hewlett-Packard in 1983. It was based on the Intel 8088 and was one of the world's earliest commercialized touch screen computers. The machine was not IBM PC compatible, although it was MS-DOS compatible. Customized MS-DOS versions 2.01, 2.11 and 3.20 were available. Its 8088 CPU, rated at 8 MHz, was faster than the 4.77 MHz CPUs used by the IBM PC of that period. Using add-on cards, main memory could be increased from 256 KB (256 KiB) to 640 KB. However, its mainboard did not have a slot for the optional Intel 8087 math coprocessor due to space constraints. The HP-150 with an optional hard disk was called the "Touchscreen MAX".

The screen was a 9" Sony CRT surrounded by infrared emitters and detectors which detected the position of any non-transparent object that touched the screen. In the original HP-150, these emitters & detectors were placed within small holes located in the inside of the monitor's bezel (which resulted in the bottom series of holes sometimes filling with dust, causing the touch screen to fail until the dust was vacuumed from the holes).

Like the Macintosh, the computer was packaged with the CRT. Unlike the Mac, the 3½-inch disks were external. The HP-150 45611A sat atop the phone book sized 9121D dual 3½-inch floppy (76 mm high, 325 mm wide, 285 mm deep) or similarly sized hard disk devices, connected by HP-IB. The HP-120 45600A 2×Z80 CP/M machine also used the 9121 drives.

The HP-150II 45849A replaced the HP-150 in 1984. It was still called the Touchscreen, although the touch screen was no longer standard, but rather a rarely adopted option. The optional touch screen bezel was superior to the original bezel, in that the emitters and detectors were now located behind a solid infrared-transparent plastic; removing the need to regularly clean the holes found in the original model.

The HP-150II had the same footprint as the HP-150, but came in a larger housing to accommodate its 12" screen, but could no longer accommodate an internal printer. The HP-150II had four expansion slots available (as opposed to two), and could accommodate an optional 8087 co-processor board. There were some minor compatibility problems between the HP-150 and the HP-150II in the video subsystem.

In 1985 HP introduced the Vectra, which InfoWorld stated was the company "responding to demands from its customers for full IBM PC compatibility". HP repositioned the 150 as a workstation for the HP 3000 minicomputer.^[1]

• Supported HP-IB attached storage:

• Display resolutions:
  • Text: 80 columns × 27 lines (720 pixel × 378 pixel)
    • Character size: 7 pixel × 10 pixel
    • Character cell size: 9 pixel × 14 pixel
    • Inherent HP Terminal emulation equivalent to HP2623 Graphics Terminal
  • Bit-map: 512 pixel × 390 pixel
  • Separate plane for text and graphics
• Monitor sensor grid: 40 (h) × 24 (v)
• Optional Internal Thermal printer 2647A (Fax Roll)
• Communication ports:
  • RS-232 × 2 (one of them supported RS-422)
  • HP-IB (IEEE-488)
  • HP-HIL (standard on the HP-150II, but an optional add-on card on the HP-150)

HP-150's touch screen sensor grid is quite coarse. Its resolution is only two characters wide. Used mainly for rough cursor positioning and function key control, it could not be used to draw pictures.

See also: List of Hewlett-Packard products

Reception

BYTE in November 1984 called the HP 150 "an extremely flexible machine", but "difficult to program".^[2]

References

Bibliography

• Hewlett Packard: Series 100: HP 150 Personal Computer; Printed 9/83; 5953-5846
• Lemmons, Phil; Robertson, Barbara (October 1983). "Product Preview: The HP 150". BYTE: 36–50. Retrieved February 15, 2015. 
• Lemmons, Phil; Robertson, Barbara (October 1983). "An Interview: The HP 150's Design-team Leaders". BYTE: 51–58. Retrieved February 15, 2015. 
• The Definitive HP150 Catalog. The 1991 Edition. Personalized Software

External links

• HP-150
• Hewlett-Packard HP-150
• HP's Virtual Museum: 6-views of the HP-150
• HP Computer Museum: 100 Series, also HP-150 Software