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From: heath@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM (Robert Heath)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: Developing and Communicating with a Portfolio
Message-ID: <6402@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM>
Date: 2 Aug 90 18:53:19 GMT
References: <1990Jul30.161330.19070@ipsa.reuter.com>
Reply-To: heath@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM (Robert Heath)
Organization: NCR Corp., Engineering & Manufacturing - Columbia, SC
Lines: 42

To: gchow@itcyyz.UUCP
Subject: Re: Developing and Communicating with a Portfolio
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
In-Reply-To: <1990Jul30.161330.19070@ipsa.reuter.com>
Organization: NCR Corp., Engineering & Manufacturing - Columbia, SC
Cc: 
Bcc: 

In article <1990Jul30.161330.19070@ipsa.reuter.com> you write:
>I have some questions about the Portfolio which my local dealer can't seem to
>answer adequately:
>  o what languages are available for developing applications for the Portfolio?
>    My dealer mentioned Pascal and C but he couldn't name a compiler. I want
George, you can cross-develop programs for the Portfolio and download them
to your Portfolio. I have developed Turbo C programs for the Port on my 
AT clone then downloaded them successfully.  There's  not enough disk
space for a fully C development environment on the Port.

Alternately you can get a tiny BASIC which I believe runs *ON* the Port.
I've seen it under the APORTFOLIO discussion group on CompuServe.
The programs will have to be well-behaved -- text mode only.
>    to hear from someone who's actually done some development work.
I've done it.

>  o To communicate with a desktop requires a parallel or serial port. Is there
>    any cheaper means? And what protocol does the Portfolio use?
I've used both.  You will need either a parallel or a serial adapter
in addition to your basic Port. Sticky point: there's no native terminal
emulator on the Port. Best bet: get XTERM2 from CompuServe. It uses
Xmodem.  Plan #3: buy a credit card memory drive for your standard PC
from Atari.

>  o how's the compatibility of the Portfolio? Have anyone tried anything
>    like the Norton Utilities or 4DOS on it?
The DOS-like OS on the Port is like MS-DOS 2.X.  As I mentioned above,
you'll be limited to very well-behaved programs.  Keep in mind your basic
Port has only 128K of memory, out of which comes your C: drive. You may not
have room for all of Norton. Heck, there's no hard disk anyway -- they're
all RAM disks.  We're talking tiny computer.

	Best,
	Robert Heath