Portable Plus: The Portable Paper issues now available on-line

[rprosperi]

The following has been noted briefly deep inside several existing threads, but I thought I would add this new post to be sure to catch the attention of all current and prospective HP-110 Portable Plus Users, and make it easy to find in later searches.

All 36 issues of The Portable Paper, published between 1986-91 are now available online in searchable PDF format here for download. TPP was published by Personalized Software/Thaddeus Computing, with Hal Goldstein as Editor and frequent contributor. Most issues have 40-50 pages of technical articles, reviews, tips, and awesome product ads. TPP was then, and still is today, the reference source for all things related to the Portable Plus. There is also a master index for 1986-1989 issues, but since the PDF files are all searchable, it’s pretty easy to search the other later issues as well. If you are even casually interested in The Portable Plus, you should definitely check this out.

Each TPP subscriber from 1988-91 received a free Subscriber Disk of utilities, applications and tools to tweak and extend the features and usefulness of their Portable Plus; these disk images are also available for download with notes describing the tools on each disk.

The files are hosted by the HP Computer Museum in Melbourne Australia, but much of the museum can be found at www.hpmuseum.net in a web browser near you. This site has LOTS of interesting information on older HP computers, and is very similar in role as the MoHPC site. There is minimal overlap between sites, and if you are interested in HP’s early computers, it is strongly recommend.

Why is an HP-110 Portable Plus relevant to MoHPC fans? Well, of course many of us have wanted one since the 80’s anyhow, they are available cheap on TAS, they play nicely with HP-IL, and they can be used as a terminal for an HP-71, HP-75, and HP-41. If that’s not enough to get you interested, please feel free to move along, but if it did catch your interest, please post a reply telling how you use your Portable Plus to enhance your calculator use and play, or feel free to ask questions about how it can be used.

My personal thanks to the following people for making these awesome resources available:

Hal Goldstein – Editor/Publisher, and copyright holder of TPP

J-F Garnier – Motivation and suggestion to get these posted on the web, and lots of technical contributions (here) to make using the Portable Plus (including with HP-IL and his PIL-Box, see here) easier and more fun

HP Computer Museum – For hosting these TPP issues and resources

Anonymous MoHPC member – For contacting Hal, coordinating with HPCM to arrange hosting, and personally scanning all the material for hosting, and humbly declining to take credit for all the work. (Thanks anyhow Dave)