Programmable Calculators and Pocket Computers
Throughout the 80's and the beginning of the 90's programmable calculators stood in competition with pocket computers, with high end calculators sharing many similarities. For example both device types were programmable in unstructured BASIC and with few exceptions featured QWERTY keyboards. However there were also some differences:
- BASIC programmable calculators often featured an additional "calculator like" keyboard and a special calculator mode in which the system behaved like a Scientific calculator.
- Pocket computers often offered additional programming languages as option. The Casio PB-2000 for example offered ANSI-C, BASIC, Assembler and Lisp.
Companies often had both device types in their product portfolio. Casio for example sold some BASIC programmable calculators as part of their "fx-" calculator series and pocket computer the dedicated "pb-" series while Sharp on marketed all BASIC programmable devices as pocket computer.
Read more about this topic: Programmable Calculator
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