Texas Instruments wasn't known for pocket computers or portable handhelds, but they did have at least two: the handheld Compact Computer 40, which then was shrunk and modified into the "calculator" TI-74 BASICALC, nevertheless still fully programmable in BASIC and thus qualifies as a stealth pocket computer.

With various Hexbus devices (including at least two hobbyist ones), you can give both units a real serial port. The CC-40 supports serial communications with the Memo Processor cartridge, but the TI-74 never had such an option. Let's fix that, in TMS7000 assembly language!

At the end we'll have a server-side gopher client specially formatted for their smaller 31x1 LCDs, as well as an experimental "single line shell" to imagine how you might run a CLI.


There are videos, too!

All source code, including the assembler source and the Perl-based Gopher and shell clients, are on Github.