[mikewarot]

Long ago, I had an interview with a startup in Chicago called US Robotics. They had a Kaypro 2, a complete computer, with a built-in display... and it was portable! So much less stuff than the S-100 systems I was used to. I was in awe.

It turned out they made modems, quite successfully for a while. I'm sad I botched the interview, I would have been doing destructive testing, so much fun! 8)

I still feel nostalgia for the Kaypro 2, even though I have millions of times the compute in a device the size of 2 legal pads.

[mitchbob]

I had a Kaypro when I was a technical writer at Amiga. Quite an amazing machine for its time. With it and WordStar, I got a lot of writing done!

[ChainOfFools]

wait, you were actually at 'Amiga' Los Gatos (pre atari/commodore acquisition battle) or at Commodore-Amiga?

[mitchbob]

Both. I used the Kaypro in Santa Clara, before we moved to Los Gatos. By the time we got to Los Gatos, the writers had Sun workstations (which had amazing keyboards; I've never typed faster) and Interleaf.

[quickthrower2]

I remember US Robotics being a big modem brand, considered a good brand if I recall correctly

[watersb]

Oh yes US Robotics modems were some of the first consumer modems to get data throughput above 9600 bits per second.

They also created a weird but very interesting computer designed by some guy named Jeff Hawkins.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_(PDA)

Which, come to think of it, is my pick for Interesting Computer.

Very fun to program, a couple of extensions to turn the Notepad into a Wiki (we would call it a Zettlekasten now, I suppose). The initial API was very much like Macintosh C programming.

[blooalien]

I remember when US Robotics sent out a buncha 56K modems for a dime to 33.6K modem owners. Loved US Robotics before that, but loved 'em even more after that. :)