Casio AI-1000 Pocket Lisp Computer from 1989 [video]

Oh dear, the thought of typing Lots of Infuriating and Silly Parentheses on a calculator keyboard doesn't exactly inspire!

It's not clear from the bit of the video I watched, but presumably there was some sort of IDE-like help with this?

For context, the 50G came out at the tail end of HP's development of calculators. (In fact, the original Corvallis calculator group had disbanded and the group that produced the 50G was a reconstitution assembled in part from the HP48 enthusiast community.)

By the time the 50 rolled around, computers had reduced the role of calculators in professional work, and HP was left addressing the enthusiast and educational markets. But the educational market was (and is) already heavily locked up by TI. So the 50G wound up being a compromise product (and built to a lower price point). IMO, the diminished Enter key and 'algebraic first' aspects of the design are direct attempts by HP to cater to people who might otherwise be using TI.

As someone who was enthusiastic about HP48's back in the day, I have to admit that I'm a little sad that the market hasn't continued to develop. But to be perfectly honest, modern technology and software is so much more capable, and I have no desire at all to carry another special function device if I can avoid it. My guess is that this is a fairly widespread opinino.

> TBQH, I'd love a hp-50g internals (or better) in hp-48gx case :)

I'd always hoped they'd do both that (With the old school black/blue/yellow color scheme) and a version of the 50g in the 200LX case. Between the faster CPU of the 50G and the much bigger screen of the 200, the result would have been a great rendition of the core RPL software. (For 1994-5, at least).

don't forget that the form change was done with hp49, in 1999, when scientific/engineering calculators were still in professional work since even in CAD/CAM/CAE era, sometimes you had to work away from the bulky desktops and laptops were still much more expensive and underpowered compared to your typical engineering PC. Of the arguments to move the enter key, only the need to add more buttons is IMO defendable :)

IDE? Sure, the whole machine is the development environment. Integrated to the nines, everything you need right there in your pocket.

And frankly, that machine was luxurious!! Multi-line display, reasonably sized keyboard? NICE. The ones I used were typically one or two line displays. Workable, but not pleasant.

Today, yeah. We have very luxurious user interface capabilities! Fantastic displays, sounds, keyboards, touch screens, and lots of storage, can run multiple programs at once.

Back then, the inspiration was simply being able to write and run a program. The bonus with these little pocket computers was being able to do that on the go, where you are.

I was doing manufacturing back when these things popped up. Getting one was huge! I filled one with a bunch of programs that could compute things needed to make parts quickly and accurately.

There were good computers, but they were in offices generally far away from where the action was. A lot of effort went into making sure the people making things had the info they needed to do that too.

But, that didn't always happen with prototypes and or jigs, fixtures and other things needed to make the intended things.

I basically encoded my skills into that little pocket computer and could think something up, or be handed a drawing and just go make stuff from that input data and do so with few worries.

Prior to these kinds of devices, people would use reference sheets, or go to where they could use a computer to generate the detail data they need, or just break out pencil and paper and do the math with some calculator or other.

The ones I used offered BASIC. And for the time, getting some RAM, a respectable BASIC, a screen, etc... meant being able to write programs to solve problems and get the benefit of those solutions multiple times, on demand.

Today, of course, we carry around phones with computers attached and they are crazy powerful! Today we've got apps for people to use too.

At that time, the IDE was the device, a reference card, manual in the carrying case, and if you were lucky, some storage options and or printed output options. Otherwise, it was use the little screen and keyboard to bang the program out, run it, debug it, then use it.