NAME  

HHC

MANUFACTURER  

Panasonic

TYPE  

Pocket

ORIGIN  

Japan

YEAR  

1981

BUILT IN LANGUAGE 

SNAP interpreter

KEYBOARD  

65 keys, calculator type. All the keys are redefinable.

CPU  

6502 Low power NMOS version

SPEED  

1 MHz

RAM  

2, 4 or 8 KB. Up to 96 KB with 4, 8 or 16 KB memory modules.

ROM  

16 KB internal - 3 x optional 16 KB modules

TEXT MODES 

LCD display - 1 line x 26 chars.

GRAPHIC MODES 

8 x 159 dots

COLORS  

Monochrome

SIZE / WEIGHT 

227 x 95 x 30,5 mm / weight: 570 gr.

I/O PORTS 

44-pin expansion port, 3 sockets for program ROM's

BUILT IN MEDIA 

Tape recorder interface built into the printer expansion

POWER SUPPLY 

5 x built-in Ni-Cad batteries 'AA' type (80 hours autonomy) or external 9 v. P.S.U.

PERIPHERALS  

Printers, I/O expansion interface, RS-232 interface, IEEE 488 interface, TV display interface, acoustic modem, RAM expansions, disk drive, EPROM burner, etc.

PRICE  

$500

 

Panasonic HHC

HHC

 After buying the Franco-American CIE Friends Amis (Amis means Friends in French) and their hand held computer project, Matsushita manufactured the computer and sold it under Panasonic (RL-Hxx series) and Quasar (HK-2600TE) brand names. About 70.000 Panasonic systems were sold.

The system was mainly conceived to run custom software developed by third companies. For this reason, it didn't included powerful built-in software or languages but featured an universal


expansion port able to manage several peripherals simultaneously, and three ROM chip compartments. Examples of available software are: Portawriter, Telecomputing 1-2-3, File Exchange, Portacalc, Portaflex (store management), Portabudget, Portabroker, Porta Bid, Portastock, Portalog, Portasales, Portaservice, Portaaudit, etc.

The system featured SNAP, an interpreted programming language, close to Forth and not really easy to learn. Hopefully, a light version of the Microsoft BASIC interpreter ROM could be added.

The HHC (for "Hand Held Computer") had great success in USA, mainly in insurance companies thanks to a built-in custom insurance calculation application dedicated to claim adjusters and traveling salesmen who could make any insurance quotation and print it, anywhere, anytime. Few systems were sold in other countries.

The picture shows a system with a Printer/Cassette interface attached. User had to buy it to save programs files on tape! The printer used a small 75 mm wide roll of thermal paper. It printed 16 char per line at a speed of 24 char /second.

Graphic possibilities were available as an option, as well as a TV video interface, which enabled the HHC to be connected to a TV through a scart connector. The HHC could then display 32 x 16 characters in text mode (character matrix 5x 7), or 128 x 64 with 8 colors in semi-graphic mode or 128 x 128 with 4 colors in graphic mode.