Casio PB-100: sadness, but not my sadness

Casio PB-100 was an interesting pocket computer. Among my friend we reference it as a pocket calculator , and honestly I think that's the proper way to describe this device.

In fact, it was a device that my friends and I always made fun of when we were young. Comparing with Sharp PC-1500, Casio FX-720P or even Casio FX-602P, PB-100 had not much memory, doesn't not have much power, and it had a small screen. But I think the biggest reason why we made fun of it was because Casio dared to call this device "Pocket Computer", while more power device like FX-702P was being describe by Casio appropriately as "Programmable Calculator".

Now that I look back, CASIO was just doing what any company will do by packaging their product for any potential market they could think of. And back then the term computer was hot and sexy. In fact, my cousin Wing Tung brought in the PB-100 CoolAid, hoping to learn computer by buying and learning to use this "pocket computer" in order to better equip him to use computer in general. I spent some time teaching him BASIC computer language and found that he's just not good at it at all. I event wrote a few home made newsletter to him in order to teach him computer or at least stirs up his interest.

Eventually my cousin became a cook, and that PB-100 was given to me years later, and then I lost it somehow.

If you want to experience the exciting BASIC programming experience within the 544 byte memory restriction , then try this PB-100 Emulator. It's for Mac OSX, though.