Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!Jake-S
From: Jake-S@cup.portal.com (Jake G Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: Dream Machine (Re: HP Announces New Calculator!)
Message-ID: <41005@cup.portal.com>
Date: 7 Apr 91 03:27:10 GMT
References: <1991Apr2.130722.16548@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
  <9390@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <559@lysator.liu.se>
  <69319@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 19

Jim Cloos recently writes:

> I've got even higher expectations.

> What I'd like to see is a line of devices from one the size of the bar-code
> readers FedEx deliverers use, all the way to IBM 3080-F sized machines.

I wonder if Jim knows that the little bar-code reader that FedEx uses is 
the product of one of the most famous HP calculator hardware hackers, Jim
DeArras. First, he built a 512-register add-on box for the HP41 back in
1981, and then developed the original HP41 EPROM box, powered from the HP41
bus out of the plug-in port. A company, Hand Held Products was formed 
to sell these HP41 add-on products, and Jim then continued to tinker out
of his garage in Richmond. Today, the company has over 130 employees, mostly
working in Charlotte, NC, manufacturing industrial bar-code and other smart
handheld devices.  Jim still tinkers in his own shop in back of his Richmond
home, working miracles in small packages. 

Jake Schwartz