Chapter 1 Congratulations! Congratulations! You have just purchased the first of a new gen- eration of personal computers. The Epson HX-20 is unlike any product ever built, combining the power and usefulness of a desktop computer with the port- ability of a pocket calculator. It’s a go-anywhere, do- anything system designed from the start to be user-friendly- which means you don’t have to know anything about comput- ers to use it. Powered by its own internal batteries, with no dan- gling cords or external parapher- nalia, the HX-20 is a compact and uncluttered system, at home in the classroom or the confer- ence room, on your desk or in your lap.
Unlike most other personal computers, the HX-20 can store up to seventeen programs in its memory. (Five of these may be BASIC programs.) When you turn on the HX-20, a menu ap- pears on the screen, listing the names of these programs. You can make the HX-20 run any program on the menu simply by pressing a single key. Furthermore, the HX-20 has a memory like an elephant. Un- like most personal computers, which forget any program in memory as soon as they are “powered down,” the HX-20 remembers all programs in its 1