Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!fs1!fs1.ee.ubc.ca!jthornto
From: jthornto@fs1.ee.ubc.ca (THORNTON JOHAN A)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: Should I buy the Portfolio?
Message-ID: <1400@fs1.ee.ubc.ca>
Date: 31 Aug 90 18:31:32 GMT
References: <11576@tekno.chalmers.se>
Sender: root@fs1.ee.ubc.ca
Reply-To: jthornto@fs1.ee.ubc.ca (THORNTON JOHAN A)
Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering University of B.C.
Lines: 57

In article <11576@tekno.chalmers.se> d83_sven_a@tekno.chalmers.se (SVEN AXELSSON) writes:
:I need something very portable mainly for word
:processing purposes, and I'm thinking of buying
:an Atari Portfolio. Questions:
:
:o  Is that a good choice, or are there other
:    al|ternatives to consider? (I don't need a 
:    calculator, so I guess the HP machines
:    are out of the question here. )

No.  Don't buy it for wordprocessing.  You can't touch type on it.  For a bit
less, you can buy a Tandy 100 something, which is a dedicated wordprocessor.
It's somewhat bigger, but at least it's got 80 columns of text.  It has an
RS-232 interface to transfer its files to a host system. 
:
:o   I 'm a Macintosh user. Can the Portfolio
:    handle sending files to and from my Macintosh, 
:    or is that a problem?
:
Does the Mac have RS-232?  From what I've gathered about interfacing it to
the 48SX, it does, but with a non-standard connector.  If so, yes it can.

:o   I intend to use this machine in
:    academic meetings. I don't want to irritate
:    people with beeps or keyboard clicks. What
:    about the Portfolio in this respect?
:
No problems there.

:o   I'm interested in logic programming and
:    would like to port a small Prolog interpreter,
:    written in Pascal, to the Portfolio. Will this be
:    possible?
:
A small one.  Are you writing it?  As long as you use standard DOS i/o calls,
it should work.

:o   Do you think I should wait for a better, that
:    is smaller and more powerful, machine? Is
:    Atari planning a new version?
:
An 80286 Portfolio is in the works.  With 512K memory.  Don't expect it to
cost $350, though...

:Thanks for your opinions
:Torbjoern Lager
:Department of Linguistics, Gothenburg
:University, Sweden

Halsa alla i Sverige...
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