In 1983, Hewlett Packard released one of the most interesting "IBM Compatible" computers in history: the HP150. Among its standout features were the inclusion of one or two 3.5-inch floppy drives—a decade before other manufacturers "discovered" them—and a nine-inch green phosphor screen with a touch screen system. It ran a slightly modified DOS 2.11 tailored to exploit its advanced hardware and cost, depending on configuration, from $2,750 at the time.
The IBM PC Era and HP's Strategy
In 1981 IBM introduced the "IBM PC" (for "Personal Computer"), which would go on to become the grandfather of most current compatible computers, all thanks to its open architecture.
Until then, each manufacturer jealously guarded its hardware characteristics and protected them legally, making it impossible for other companies to design compatible peripherals or systems. IBM's decision to open the PC architecture gave rise to an army of "clones" that turned it into a de facto standard.
Most clone manufacturers limited themselves to building identical PCs but cheaper. Others, however, tried to improve IBM's machine without straying too far from the standard. This way, they ensured that the software base running on the operating system, Microsoft DOS (or IBM DOS), could work on their computers. Hewlett Packard, a manufacturer famous for its models of calculators and "big" computers, was in the second group.
The HP150 was one of the most interesting members of the "100" series of Hewlett Packard personal computers. Its launch took place in October 1983, it was the first HP machine capable of running MS-DOS and it had an Intel 8088 microprocessor running at 8MHz. Despite the youth of the platform, there were many competitors launching similar products. So at HP they had the idea of equipping the HP150 with one of the first versions of the touch screen in history.
Touch Screen Technology and Its Quirks
Built with an ingenious grid of infrared light rays, with emitters on two sides of the screen and receivers on the opposite sides, this screen allowed the lucky owners of the HP150 to replace many commands that would otherwise require entering cryptic DOS commands via the keyboard with just a "touch". When the user's finger (or any other opaque element) interrupted one of the light rays, the HP150's hardware registered the event and communicated it to the operating system, which acted accordingly.
This caused some incompatibilities with software, but basically meant that those programs that were not prepared for the "magic HP touch" had to be used as on any other computer. A typical drawback of these screens was dust. If used in industrial environments or with a lot of dust in the air, the holes housing the IR LEDs would eventually get clogged, and the touch screen would stop working until they were cleaned. It was not serious, but quite annoying.
Compact Design and Expansion
Physically, the HP150 was very small. In fact, it is one of the most compact machines of the era, similar to the early Apple models. When you see it, its size is one of the first things that catches your attention. HP did a very good job distributing the printed circuit boards inside the 150, and managed to fit the entire computer—including a couple of expansion bays for a modem or extra RAM—inside the monitor.
HP did such a good job that there was even room for a thermal printer, which could be housed under a lid on the top of the monitor. If thermal printing was too little for your company, you could spend a handful of bills and buy one of the first inkjet printers in history: the HP ThinkJet. This little gadget used only a black ink cartridge and produced texts with infinitely superior quality to the dot matrix printers of the era, in absolute silence.
The box that supports the HP150 only contains the interface and the storage media. Over the lifetime of this computer, HP released a good number of models of this expansion box. You could choose almost any combination of floppy drives and hard disks, although never more than two devices at a time. The disks had capacities between 5 and 25 MB (yes, Megabytes!) and the 3.5-inch floppy drives could be single-sided (270KB) or double-sided (540KB).
The basic RAM of the machine was 256KB. It may not seem much, but at that time it was more than enough. However, by removing one of the rear covers of the monitor, you could add an expansion module that took the HP150 up to a glorious 640KB. In July 1984, the HP150 was renamed simply "Touchscreen". HP also put on sale a "kit" that included the CPU and an expansion unit with a floppy drive and a hard disk, which they dubbed "Touchscreen MAX".
Software and the User Experience
Using this computer was a real pleasure. The spreadsheet (Multiplan, $495) displayed a legend that read "To edit a cell, touch it." For any user of the era, this was simply magical. The available games like Chess, a 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, and Zork 1, among others, made great use of the HP150's touch screen. HP also sold emulators of its financial calculators, which used all the features of the HP150.
Obviously, HP had managed agreements with almost all IBM PC software manufacturers of the time to have them rewrite their most popular applications for the HP150. Microsoft sold its BASIC compilers (and interpreters) (GW BASIC, $495), WordStar its word processor ($605), Lattice its C compiler ($495), Visicalc its spreadsheet ($250), etc.
In 1984 Hewlett Packard replaced this model with the HP150II, a computer with similar performance but with a 12-inch screen and infrared sensors embedded in transparent plastic to eliminate the dust problem. It also had two expansion ports instead of one, and a socket for the Intel 8087 math coprocessor, although it was no longer possible to fit a printer inside the monitor cabinet.
Unfortunately, and as has happened many times throughout the history of computing, the HP150 never became a popular computer. Few were sold, and almost all in the United States. Shortly after launching the HP150II, Hewlett Packard withdrew the "100" family from its catalog and replaced it with the Vectra series. The industry would take more than a decade to rediscover 3.5-inch disks and more than 25 years to again market computers with touch screens. Meanwhile, the venerable HP150s became cult computers.
