As you certainly know, I really appreciate Sharp pocket computers. Not only they have an amazing build and engineering quality, but this Japanese manufacturer was always at the bleeding edge of the technology. The PC-1500 family – as well as the PC-1600 that I still need to present here – are certainly my favorite Sharp machines. However, Sharp did produce a group of pocket computers that deserves our attention. The PC-1250A – there are few derivatives: 1250, 1251H and TRS-80 PC-3 under license – was the smallest BASIC-programmable machines I’ve ever used and appreciate. Just to give you a feel of its size, I’ve shot a few pictures side by side with an HP-16C calculator. In 1982, Sharp engineers crammed into 135 x 70 x 9.5 mm a full qwerty keyboard – with 52 really tiny keys (4×4 mm for the letters, numbers were a bit bigger) –, a 24-character grey LCD display – unfortunately not a graphical one –, 4 KB of RAM (3486 bytes after reset, not a bit more) and 24 KB of ROM with an evolved version of BASIC over the 1500. At its heart, you could find a Hitachi SC61860 8-bit CPU running the Lilliputian at ~.5KHz! If it was still not enough, for less than 115g, you had two CR2032 batteries, a contrast knob, and an 11 pin connector. This connector was used to connect the machine to its battery-operated printer and cassette recorder cradle, the CE-125. With this extension, the system was still smaller than the TI CC-40! A beautiful pocket computer. One that could really fit in your pocket!

At this time, the problem was Casio, or Sharp ??? Casio was less expensive but Sharp was more friendly with its integrated scientific calculator: difficult to make a good choice.
Now that they are obsolete and low cost, I can have both, a PB100 from Casio and a Sharp PC1403 !!! (and a TI92-Plus too…)
Now, I’d like to have an old Hewlett Packard …
Arghh !!! Technology !!!