The Laser Portable Computers that ran BASIC.

You sound and look exactly like the guy who owns and runs my local planetarium

I found the Laser 50 for sale in the 1986 Sears Wishbook for $69.99. Or, adjusted for inflation, (as of 2023) $194.84.

Old video, but the portion about distraction free writing reminds me of the Alphasmart devices. Which were basically those in the final two products they released. The Neo and Neo2, they came out in the early 00s and were supported till 2013. Which are fairly niche products that have a loyal fanbase today.

And I'm told that it still works to transfer files from it to this day. Mostly by acting as a USB keyboard and typing out the documents in the opened program after you've hit the send button while connected to a computer. I don't have one myself.

So I can't tell you how well it transfers the format of such things. Or if you'd be better in writing in along with some BBCode or something so that formating isn't a issue when picked up by the right website. But they still relatively cheap devices on ebay to pick up.

My ti84 has more utility, such an adorable device.

NOONE CARES ABOUT THIS CRAP.

I found my Pre Computer 1000 at a Goodwill.

I really wish they made these with modern components. Really, even as a pre-teen, I actually wish they could shove a modern SOC in it, some type of dot-matrix display, a more effectively miniaturized keyboard and even those missing BASIC instructions. Imagine if you could just pull out this, it would be smaller, lighter, with a larger screen, probably better battery life, and you could probably program your own makeshift alarm clock. That's not even touching on how much little kids would probably want it too

I have a PC 3 that was supplied as a 'bonus portable PC when I purchased a Commodore PC 10. It came with several manuals, and a 360KB disk of utilities for interfacing with a PC via the serial cable or parallel cables, 2 of about half a dozen cables incling one that had a BNC connector. With these canles it could connect to just about any computer. It output perfectly to any Epson comparible dot matrix printer. As for usage, for cross word addics, the spell checker was absolutely brilliant - input 3 characters with ? for missing letters and you could scrill through a long list of words. CHEATING? YEP! But with this lille freebie, there was nothing to complain about as it would run for days on 4 Duracell battreries. Mine still works and is great for typing up memory joggers on a decent keyboard, which is always 10,000% better than a mobile phone touch screen. Yah for old tech!

I remember these computers. They were sold at a small local chain called Witmark and occasionally you would see them at others stores. They were sold to elderly people as great gifts to grandkids. Once received you would screw around with it for about 15 minutes and then go play Atari.

Does the Laser PC 6 still support BASIC?

i'd use one of these as a calculator

This computer looks like on calculator and screen doesn't give to work as complete computer only for difficult mathematical calculations and easy programs. But such computer looks like on cool calculator.

Well I don't have that, but I did pick up for $3.00 the PreComputer 1000 from Vtech. In the wild they go for only around $20, but still. It is a neat little learning computer

I would want one for the BASIC!

Can it be set up to a CRT? Serial or parallel cable? I like BASIC, but I need a larger display.

That blue and white one looks a lot like the V-Tech Computer 1000, only the V-Tech was much bigger and had extra selection buttons on it for the various educational games. It had a Basic interpreter but you couldn't save programs to cassette. I wonder if that toy was based on this computer product?

I can't type more than 20 wpm? Sighs Goodbye 86 wpm..

That video port is 7 pin s video, made to be compatible with the standard 4 pin male cables, my old Dell inspiron 600m from 2005 has it, but it also has vga, so I don't really get the point. So it's basically a newer version of s video that's backwards compatible with the older 4 pin male cables. Try it!

These Laser computers are very reminiscent of the Cambridge Z88 or even the Amstrad Notepad computer

Nice. I couldnt find anything about the Laser 500. Maby in the future you can make a video about these basic machines.

It would be interesting to see you cover the Cambridge Z88. The last computer from Clive Sinclair. It was a quite popular laptop among journalists at the time. It also ran BBC BASIC and was very expandable. Of course is was slightly quirky but not a bad machine.

I really wanted this to have in Brazil it looks very interesting I would spend all day programming in it. I really like programming :-)

Does anyone have a PDF copy of the PC4 manual or know the pinout for the 15 pin expansion port?

these take me back to using alphasmarts back in elementary school when my arm broke

[HELP] I have a Laser PC5. The only one you didn't show in the video. The problem is that the BASIC interpreter is replaced with typing tutor. I have tried everything to try to try to access it. So, if anyone who sees this has access to a PC5 with the BASIC interpreter on it, could you possibly make a copy of the EPROM? I have a programmer.

Also, are you gonna make a video about AlphaSmart?

This kind of reminds me of the AlphaSmart Basic Educational Computer Units I used to use back in my early years of Elementary School, where I took my Accelerating Reading (Abbreviation AR) and MathFacts in a Flash tests on. They were VERY SIMPLE keyboard computer units with a simple LCD screen that displays variable icons, numbers, and digits, but not backlit or in color. But of course, they have now been replaced by iPads and Tablets, or probably even the Chromebooks. But from what I saw, they have mostly been replaced with iPads.

I'd say the targeted demographic for the device demostrated in this video is for people who get easily distracted with the internet, notifications, and other stuff while writing a document and doing math, if that thing were to still be sold today. And I'd call this, The AlphaSmart's Predecessor.

I have something similar made by, I believe Sanyo. I'd have to look the thing out, but it has a dock of sorts that has a tape deck that uses tiny little tapes, and possibly a printer, but don't quote me on the the make or printer, I was like 10 years old last time I used it and could just be faulty memory.

Laser portable.

Word processing on those little things reminds me of my old electric typewriter from the late 80s. It could type 1 character at a time, but that used so much of the single-use ribbon, I preferred to type whole lines into its 16x1 display. Not quite the same as typing whole documents, but I still don't quite know how I did it.

Edit: Oh! Spreaking of distraction-free typing, I used to use an old DOS laptop to type novels in my car at night, running from the cigarette lighter with a light on a bendy stalk to just light up the keyboard & screen. I didn't get very far with my novels though. :)

I'm jealous of your collection of colorful iBooks! :D I've only got 1, it's faded and the apple has fallen out. Still boots to Open Firmware though, and I keep telling myself I'll build on that one day.

Way late to this video, but my childhood friend that lived across the street from me, his mom Rhonda worked for AT&T, and she had a PC4. Not sure exactly what she did with it for work, but she used it almost every day.

I have a Tandy 1100 FD which is a laptop from 1989 that runs BASIC but also has Deskmate 3 built into it

I wrote college papers on a Tandy portable. Back then, it was a great word processor.

I had this Laser 50 "computer" when I was a child, a gift from my grandmother, and even as a 10 years old boy, I considered this computer as a piece of crap, I sold it less than a week after I got it to buy an used Casio BP700 (Still working today). This computer was made of poor plastic, with limited basic and crappy keyboard.


I had another laser PC computer later, a 386DX and it was a great PC.

Laser was a strange brand, they did probably the best Apple II clone, great PC (x86) systems and some of those useless "portable" computers.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA I love the action shot at Starbucks. I hope someone noticed what you were typing on. 😂

Wait VTECH!!!

Took it to Starbucks classic lol bring something else that's massive lol

i cut my teeth on manual IBM,, then IBM II Selectric typewriters, then Apple IIC with BASIC, then C++.... had to learn how to work a plotter, use a telephone MODem..., then, they made WiFi...and cell phones.

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Did you end up doing a video on the Laser 200 (sold in AU as the Dick Smith VZ200)? that was my first computer.

i have a problem with my laser pc4, it only runs one line of BASIC at a time, i need to push enter after each line, is it supposed to be like that?

I bought a Sinclair 1000 years ago for $30 from an electronic dealer that was closing shop. Hooking it up to my television I was at once impressed with the membrane keyboard. That is you could press a single key and the entire programming command would appear like PRINT, GOTO, INPUT, LIST, etc.

The Sinclair 1000 had a very small amount of memory, in fact the version I had would actually run out of memory before it could fill the screen to black (in a test) as apparently it used the display of the screen as part of its incredibly small memory.

Other than that there were a great many games, utilities, and business applications that were written for it - despite its small memory size.

And like other computers the memory could be expanded upon later.

So yes this is a very old computer. Very delicate instruments. Works perfectly, there is no need to repair anything ... So - let's open it up !

I love cable organisation on the backround of the studio

Reminds me of a massively striped down spectrum or a zx81…. But even the zx 80 had tv/monitor out.
I mean if it had been angled as a portable Sinclair clone, and added a video out. It could have done much better…

did you ever find out about the video port?

Just saw this pop up on my feed. I was president of the Laser PC National Clun in 1990 and we has a newsletter called Lugnuts.