{"id":1206,"date":"2016-08-30T11:57:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T16:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=1206"},"modified":"2016-08-30T12:01:48","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T17:01:48","slug":"retro-scan-hp-95lx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1206\/retro-scan-hp-95lx","title":{"rendered":"<span id=\"retro_color\">[ Retro Scan ]<\/span> HP 95LX"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/hp_95lx_guide_large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/hp_95lx_guide_small.jpg\" alt=\"Hewlett-Packard HP 95LX HP-95LX Handheld Computer Pocket Computer Palmtop PC User's Guide Cover scan - 1991\" class=\"retroscan\"\/><\/a><span class=\"freecaption\"><em>HP-95LX: Like a computer-shaped cookie that you can&#8217;t eat<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In case you didn&#8217;t know, the HP 95LX is a small, portable IBM PC compatible machine running a full version of MS-DOS that ran off of two AA batteries.  It marked the beginning of HP&#8217;s palmtop computer line, which I wrote about recently in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcmag.com\/slideshow\/story\/347101\/the-golden-age-of-hp-palmtop-pcs\" target=\"_blank\">slideshow for PCMag.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The HP 95LX is special to me in particular because I&#8217;ve had one for over 20 years now.  My dad bought the machine slightly-used from a friend not long after it came out.  After fiddling around with it for a while, he gave it to me, and by 1993, I had it in my collection.<\/p>\n<p>Using an RS-232 serial cable my dad built for me, I managed to transfer some MS-DOS programs to it (a few text-mode games mostly, and a few HP 95LX apps I downloaded from CompuServe), that I remember taking to school and using once or twice just for kicks.  I also used that serial cable to hook the 95LX to a modem so I could call BBSes with it.<\/p>\n<p>The worst thing about the 95LX &#8212; aside from its 1\/4 CGA screen that doesn&#8217;t let you run many MS-DOS apps &#8212; is that if you don&#8217;t have a plug-in memory card, you lose all your saved data on the RAM disk if it runs out of batteries.  Sure, it has a backup coin cell battery (or maybe two), but if that runs out, you&#8217;re out of luck.  The PC Card-like memory cards cost a lot of money back in the 1990s, so I never had one until recently.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it&#8217;s an amazing little machine.  Very capable &#8212; if you have the patience to use it.  A few years later, HP got everything right with the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/HP_200LX\" target=\"_blank\">200LX<\/a>, which is still a popular portable MS-DOS machine among certain diehards today.<\/p>\n<p><center><em>[ From HP 95LX Users&#8217;s Guide, 1991, cover ]<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion Topic:<\/strong> Did you own a palmtop PC in the 1990s? Tell us about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HP-95LX: Like a computer-shaped cookie that you can&#8217;t eat In case you didn&#8217;t know, the HP 95LX is a small, portable IBM PC compatible machine running a full version of MS-DOS that ran off of two AA batteries. It marked the beginning of HP&#8217;s palmtop computer line, which I wrote about recently in a slideshow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7,27,26,10],"tags":[258,119,1415,376,1410,1411,133,592,265,649,1412,1413,755,1414,60,1416],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbs-history","category-computer-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-computers","tag-258","tag-bbs","tag-cga","tag-compuserve","tag-hewlett-packard","tag-hp-95lx","tag-ibm-pc","tag-manual","tag-modem","tag-ms-dos","tag-palmtop-pc","tag-pocket-pc","tag-portable","tag-ram-disk","tag-retro-scan","tag-users-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}