The Epson HX-20 Demo

[LOPEZdJUNGLIST]

just a matter of time b4 that shitty rotating cube became grand theft auto

[petwir]

I wrote business applications on this device for an insurance company in the 80's. The most challanging part was they wanted a line-graph chart to print on the dot-matrix printer to mimic the output someone was getting from a radio-shack device that had a color pen plotter on it. I could never figure out how to address the printer at the pixil level, so I displayed the chart on the display window and used the "print screen" function. The chart was taller than the screen, so did mult times.

[mrbufon]

Hey man! Thank you for taking the time to put a smile on my face

[notbugs]

Me and a friend made a Pac-Man like game on the HX-20 back in the 80's. No actual Pac-Man graphics, but a dot that was chased by other dots in a maze. Took quite some time to get it smooth, but eventually it worked out and was quite fun to play.

[RealSkyDiver2]

but can it run Crysis?

[appsofint]

The demo is great - thanks for taking the time. I know at 600-ish KHz (yes Khz) processor speed *and* BASIC your work was always going to be cut out for you.

Any chance of seeing the source code for the demo?

[Chainsaw1974]

@appsofint Yes, the Basic is so slow, but I don't have the time and motivation to learn assembler on this machine. (And I think, I don't have enough knowledge about assembler). If I could, I would show you the source code. But how? The internal printer is broken and doesn't print anything. A video of the listing during it scrolls over the small display could be hard to read... And I only have a old camera, nothing professional. And I have no cable to connect the Epson to the TV. Any idea?

[Joan0000000]

cheers! very nice stuff. Check mine, i worked with music programs in NEC 8210, Epson PX4 and Canon X-07.

[jkr1185]

Great video/program; thanks for sharing!

[xXAnthony619Xx]

Thank you for the video! I just looked up earliest laptop in Google and found this XD.

[NiTuS14]

Hello! I've just got one of these little machines. :P I tried to write a blackjack game for this computer (I've found it in artsci's), but I'm constantly getting a "MO Error ln 1940" when running, so that I can't play the game. I don't know what's wrong in the script, I get this error even if I correct line 2050, changing "2050 IF PC<22 THEN 2070" by "2050 IF PC<22 THEN GOTO 2070".

Could you please help me? I'm very enthusiastic about knowing more about this 80-ish machines. :D

[Chainsaw1974]

@NiTuS14 Mhhh MO = Missing Operand Error... The IF command should work with or without "GOTO" after the "THEN" in HX-20 Basic, so I don't see a mistake in your Basic Line 2050. But the MO Error says "in 1940", so there must be an error in the line 1940, not 2050... What commands are in line 1940 ?

[Chainsaw1974]

@NiTuS14 PS: I cant post links here, youtube seems to disallow this, but if you search in google for "epson hx-20 manual" you find the manuals on the epson page. Maybe they help you by programming the Epson in Basic language...

[NiTuS14]

@Chainsaw1974 Hell yeah! "Missing operand" - that was the key! I had written "IF C=52 THEN F=13:S=5*:GOTO 2070" in line 1940, forgetting about that extra * symbol. The game works now, although I think something's still wrong, since the dealer doesn't give to me more cards - it gets stuck with the same two ones. I don't know much about blackjack, but is that normal?

[NiTuS14]

@Chainsaw1974 BTW, I'm getting a "RG Error in line 1600", which is weird, because it's properly written. I'll check it out tomorrow anyway.

Oh! And nice demo! ;)

[sofstrad]

@NiTuS14

Hello NiTus14

I am the man who sent the listing to Artsci's boss William Smith. The listing of the blackjack game has been typed directly from the original listing printed by an Epson HX-20 in 1984. I re-entered the whole listing in the HX-20 I bought to another HX-20 fan, and the program worked fine, so there are no errors in the listing. Check if you made a mistake while typing the listing. MO error means Missing Operand error.

Regards

Jean-Jacques Cortes

[NiTuS14]

@sofstrad Hi Jean-Jacques! Eventually, I managed to get it to work some months ago. It's a fun game, I'd like to record a video showing it!

[ForViewingOnly]

Great video. Have you replaced your HX-20's Ni-Cad battery yet, or do you still use the original?

[Chainsaw1974]

@ForViewingOnly No the original battery was broken. I can't remember what I built in then,but it was some battery that is normaly used in remote-controlled cars.(And I soldered the original battery conntector to that new battery). But for all I used the correct voltage of the battery,I had over and over again trouble to load the battery. The Epson worked with the power plug,but without power plug,the battery worked only a few minutes, sometimes an hour. I think generally current supply problems

[James89B]

2D Starfield made me cum

[nathanallan1]

Was it loading from the tape drive? I tried to make a crossover serial cable for it but it didn't work. Ever tried??

[Chainsaw1974]

At the beginning, it isn't loading from the tape drive. During the "loading screen" the basic program makes a precalculation of the rotating cube. I just know the normal load and save commands for the internal tape drive of the Epson. Sorry, I don't have further information about the hardware and about serial cable or other connection cables.

[nathanallan1]

Hey thanks for the reply. I'll figure out the cable one of these days.

[BitCrusherTv]

I like you'r cube rotation! it's nice!

[svofski]

This was the best part of Buenzli ;) Watched it live.