Old Hardware Emulated : PockEmul - Casio
After trying out the Casio fx-7000GA graphing calculator, I suddenly remembered this program that I've tried out years back for Windows. Called PockEmul, this is a program which emulates many classic calculators and handheld computers from the 1980's. For those who don't know what a emulator is, it's a program which imitates the hardware of a hardware device by recreating the actual components of that hardware in software. The emulates strives to run the same software that the original hardware ran, thus being compatible with the actual hardware. This differs from a simulator, which imitates the look and feel of the device, but their is no compatibility with original software.
PockEmul emulates many of the handheld computers from the 1980's. During this time, many manufacturers including: Sharp, TI, and Casio, were seeing how small they could make their computers. With the miniaturization of hardware components, computers were getting to the size where they had the same form-factor as calculators. Granted, these handheld computers were much more limited, especially in display, compared to their desktop counterparts. However, this was a computer that could fit in your hand, which made it portable, and these devices were much more powerful than the standard four-function calculator.
The functions built into these computers were of great use to those who need advanced computing in the palm of their hands, like engineers, programmers, statisticians, mathematicians, scientist, etc. These computers were the great grandfathers of smartphones of today.
For this article, we will look at PockEmul emulating the Casio brand of handheld computers. Formed as Kashio Seisakujo in 1946, the company's first product was a yubiwa pipe, which was a finger ring with a holder for a cigarette. This would free up your fingers for other task, keeping that cigarette in place. Cigarettes were valuable in Japan after World War 2, so as a result, the product was very successful. Renamed Casio in 1957, the company made the world's first all-electric compact calculator. Casio was a electronic giants by the 1980's, when the digital revolution was taking off. They made advances in miniaturization, which allowed for handheld computers that could be taken anywhere. Much more powerful than standard calculators, these computers allowed for powerful number-crunching on the go.
Introduced in 1982, the Casio FP-200 showed off portable power. Of course, portable computing had a definition back compared to today. Today, portable computers are smartphones, tablets, and laptops with multi-core processors, HD high-resolution screens, massive amounts of storage, and powerful audio capabilities. However, these portable machines were the precursors that paved the way for the technology that would follow.
The FP-200 was powered by a 8-bit, portable, Intel 8085 processor running at 4MHz, making the machine quite fast for it's day. It had a BASIC interpreter in ROM, and came with 8KB of RAM, expandable to 32KB. Like most of these portable computers of their day, they came with a monochrome LCD display. The computer had a expansion port that could accommodate cassette tape storage to save and load programs from. A very advance portable for its day indeed.
Introduced in 1987, the Casio PB-100 computer featured a touchscreen display, which was a revolutionary feature for a handheld computer during this time. Like the FP-200, the PB-1000 came with 8KB of memory, and it was expandable to 32KB. As mentioned in the Wikipedia article, the computer came with its own versions of the BASIC programming language, along with Assembler, so one could write programs in machine code. Like the FP-200, this computer could also handle expansion devices like a cassette tape drive to save and load programs from. Definitely a computer on the go.
Introduced sometime in the 1980's, the Casio PB-2000C was typical of many handheld computers of their day, especially when compared to those made by Sharp. The computer came with 32KB of RAM, which was expandable to 64KB of RAM via a RAM card that could be inserted into the computer. The text display had 4 rows that could accommodate 32 characters per row, and a graphical mode of 32 by 192 pixels.
It's around here where I do have my first serious complaint with Pockemul. Maybe it's my fault because I haven't completely figured out the emulator yet, but whenever I type from the keyboard, the text doesn't show up on the display. Whenever, I type the numbers of the keyboard, they show up on the display, without the need for me to manually move the mouse and then click on the button. Manually moving the mouse and pressing the button is the digital equivalent of using your finger to press the button. However, this type of usage, while fulfilling a nostalgic kick, would get old very quick. Their are probably keyboard shortcuts for the equation keys that I haven't figured out yet. The point is that their is a learning curve for this software, and it takes time to figure the ins and outs of the emulator. Even though these handheld computers could be used as a four-function calculator, I feel that this would be a disservice, as these machines were capable of advance mathematical computation. Their is a help section available that is of great use though.
Also, the emulator provides the ability to download the user manual in PDF format for each of the original machine emulated. This is of great use to figure out how each handheld computer operated.
One could consider this a follow-up to the PB-2000C. Their was a market for these type of handheld computers well into the 90's, so not surprisingly, Casio continued to make newer models, like the one shown above. As one could already tell, the machine proudly proclaims that it has a fast, 16-bit processor. The unit was powered by a Intel 80L188EBprocessor.
As shown in the screenshot, their is a menu that had several programming languages available on the handheld computer. Casio BASIC was their, along with a portable version of the C programming language and Assembler. Assembler is a programming language which allows the developer to write programs directly in machine language. Machine language is a step up from the 0's and 1's that the processor would use to execute its program Languages like C and BASIC are considered high-level programming languages. It's the type of programming language were one would write code in a style that would be readable by humans, which the processor would then convert to machine code, like assembly language. The main trade-off with using a high-level language like C or BASIC is performance. Programs can't run as fast because processing time has to be taken to convert that human-readable code into machine code, resulting in a performance loss. Also, programs written high-level languages tend to consume more memory than their assembler counterparts, because they have to store the extra human-readable statements. Despite this though, the high-level languages were more than capable for their tasks, and it was possible to write advance programs using complicated equations that were of use to those in the professions using this technology. Also, speaking from experience, coding in assembly is a nightmare. I'll choose BASIC or C over Assembler any day!
The Casio Z-1GR handheld computer. Introduced in 1997, this model was a updated version of the Z-1 portable computer. By this time, the market for these type of handheld computers started to face stiff competition from various sources. Laptops have gotten much more accessible by this time. Also, graphing calculators became the standard in scientific and mathematical fields. PDA's (Personal Digital Assistant) like the Palm Pilot, were taking the world by storm. However, their was still a market for these type of handheld computers. As mentioned previously, the Z-1GR was a followup to the Z-1. It had the same features of its predecessor. The changes to the system were mainly cosmetic. Still a very capable machine, and a demonstration of how Casio was one of the leaders in hardware miniaturization.
Casio introduced their graphing calculators in 1985. Their were many models in the series. The fx-7000 was the first model, where as the fx-8000 was a followup. Introduced in 1987, it was very similar to the fx-7000G. It had a dot matrix LCD screen with a resolution of 96 by 64 pixels. It was capable of supporting an optional printer as well, like the fx-7000G. The calculator had different operating modes. By default, the calculator entered "Mode 0" which was the main calculator/graphing mode. "Mode 2" was the programming mode which allowed the developer to write programs for their calculator. This was a very capable calculator for its time, and was one of the driving forces that propelled Texas Instruments to produce their TI line of graphing calculators.
PockEmul is really good at illustrating the history of the Casio handheld computers of the 1980's and 1990's. This emulator though can be awkward to use.With that said, it's possible to use these emulated computers for software development.Another thing to mention is that PockEmul hasn't been updated since 2016. However, it does run on Windows 7, and it probably will run on Windows 10 without issue. Their is a Android port as well. It doesn't play well on smartphones due to their small screen. However, it's awesome on tablets. It's possible that these emulated computers to become portable again, and live on through modern tablets. The modern tablets that were originally conceived from these devices. I've loaded PockEmul on my Amazon Fire tablet, and it provokes the nostalgic bug in me. These devices were very capable for their time, and are much more powerful than four-function calculators. These devices helped pave the way for more advance technology in the future, like smartphones and tablets.
Casio PB-1000 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_PB-1000
Casio fx-7000G - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_fx-7000G
Casio fx-8000G- http://www.calculator.org/pages/calculator.aspx?model=fx-8000G&make=Casio
The Casio PB-2000C computer - http://pocket.free.fr/html/casio/pb-2000c_e.html
The Casio FX-890P computer - http://pocket.free.fr/html/casio/fx-890p_e.html
The Casio Z-1GR computer - http://pocket.free.fr/html/casio/z-1gr_e.html
PockEmul - http://pockemul.free.fr/
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