I bought an Epson PX-8 around the time both the NEC and the Tandy “notebook” style computers came out (though they didn’t call them that then). The Epson, which I got in October 1984, was clearly superior to the other two — it had an 8-line flip-up screen, and you could actually save a file – to a tiny micro-cassette tape. Mind you, it took ages, esp. if you used “verify mode” which checked the recording was good. The battery lasted for a whole EIGHT hours, and I spent many, many hours writing articles in burger bars in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore with it — because it even had Portable WordStar v1.0. As it was a CP/M machine though some people said I’d bought a “white elephant”, but it was one of the best buys I ever made, for all of US$1,000. I even took it up to the summit of the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, Mt Kinabalu, 4,101m (13,455′) high — the first computer ever to make it up there. I was still using it even five years later, when travelling, as (at under 2Kg) it was still lighter than any other at the time. You just had to copy the files across to a DOS machine via the serial port — which was also the way to print, with a special serial adapter in my Panasonic printer. Twenty-four years later, I still have it, but, er no — it doesn’t work now. But it was a great baby, and like all “first borns” it remains my favourite…..
