Epson QX-10

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Sun Sep 30 11:47:36 2001

At 04:00 AM 9/30/01 -0700, doug wrote:
>For those poor mis informed folk -- the Epson QX-10 was not a laptop.
>Many of the common features that are in use in keyboards today first
>appeared on the OX-10 (Help key, Undo key and others).

This is true.

>Jerry Parnell (held stock in IBM ---- ick!!!!!!) was a major influence in
>the demise of the QX series.

This is not true. Jerry Pournelle may or may not have held stock in IBM but
he was not particularly in love with one machine or another. If he had a
passion it was for the simplicity of CP/M (you can email him if you'd like
over at jerrypournelle.com)

> He spent 3 days with Chris Ratowski to
>review to the Valdocs III Integrated Software package. He saw a beta
>version with some bugs in it. In the course of those three days he kept
>saying what a great piece of software Valdocs was. Chris explained
>several times that it was a beta version and not quite ready for release.

Jerry also got a copy of the release version.

>[some more mis-information snipped]

>I have a QX-10 complete that I bought in 1986 or 1987 (don't remember).
>It still works somewhat. I the Valdocs software, CPM 80 and much other
>software. The reset button was by passed as it failed and the keyboard
>cord has been spliced together. It also has a 300 baud modem and the
>beta version of an optical mouse which works with Val Draw only. I was a
>beta tester for the Epson QX-10. I know first hand most of its history
>and what came with it. I had a complete collection of all mags written
>for it. Don't know what I did with them.

I won a QX-10 with a bunch of software, and the MSDOS accelerator card and
the hard drive. Even with the accelerator it was slower than molasses in
January. The high persistence phosphor screen that allowed it to get
slightly better resolution at slower frame rates smeared like crazy and
running Valdocs on it was less fun than picking leeches off your backside.
Even with all that my wife put up with it for over 3 years because she ran
an accounting program on it. (Managing your Money)

All that being said, the machine was pretty revolutionary for its time, the
choice of Forth as the underlying system for Valdocs rather than a
non-threaded language was gutsy. The video controller could be programmed
quite extensively. And it was in a compact form factor when PCs were huge
and bulky. But using it is still a joke in my house :-)

--Chuck
Received on Sun Sep 30 2001 - 11:47:36 BST