website/content/museum/husky-computers-limited-hawk.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	params
Husky Computers Limited Hawk	Computers	Professional Computer	United Kingdom	1987	name image company company_name specs comments oc_id source Hawk /media/museum/photos/husky_hawk_system_1.jpg /companies/husky-computers-limited Husky Computers Limited label value NAME Hawk label value MANUFACTURER Husky Computers Limited label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN United Kingdom label value YEAR 1987 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None label value KEYBOARD 68 key with numeric/arrows keypad label value CPU HD64B180 CMOS enhanced version of the Z80 label value SPEED 6.144 MHz label value RAM 352 KB Battery backed label value ROM 96 KB + 32 KB space for user applications label value TEXT MODES 40 chars. x 8 lines backlight LCD screen label value GRAPHIC MODES 240 x 64 dots label value COLORS Monochrome label value SOUND Beeper (4 octaves) label value SIZE / WEIGHT 21.6 (W) x 15.25 (D) x 2 (H) cm / 0.8 Kg label value I/O PORTS 2xSerial ports (1xDB25, 1xMini-DIN), 37 pin bus extension, Infra-red transmitter label value BUILT IN MEDIA Battery backet RAM disk label value OS DEMOS - CP/M 2.2 compatible label value POWER SUPPLY Nickel-cadmium battery - 35 hours autonomy label value PERIPHERALS Modem, A/D converter, RAM/ROM extensions, bar-code reader, floppy disc unit label value PRICE £895 author date text Mark (Wales) Monday 17th September 2007 I was part of the original team who built the Husky Hawk! I remember there were about 8 of us in the whole dept. who built and tested these lovely machines. Wow I really loved that machine - at the time it was soooo far ahead of any other handheld computer. author date text Brian Gregory (UK) Saturday 6th November 2010 To GPSLVR and anyone else interested.\ I''ve just managed to bring my own Hawk back to life which had got itself into what sounds like a similar state to yours. In my case I had to rebuild the battery pack since the original cells were in a terrible state. One had a hole in the side and there were crystals of dried electrolyte all over the inside of the pack and a few in the body of the Hawk. I remade the pack with four AA NiMH cells, which are the same length as the originals but narrower, I used the temp sensor / cutout thing (not sure exactly what it is) from the original pack, it was slightly corroded by otherwise intact. The resulting pack is somewhat messy compared to the original but does seem to work. Weirdly the secret to getting the Hawk to wake up was in the sequence the various bits were connected up. It was the opposite of what I would have expected. It only seemed to wake up if I connected the battery pack before I connected the ribbon cable to the memory expansion board fitted in the back cover. Really weird. It also made it very difficult to assemble. The charging power connector which has really short leads was very hard to plug in just behind the, already connected, battery pack connector. You know it''s up and running if the red LED comes on when you connect the charger. If you''ve never unplugged the memory expansion cable before make sure you note exactly where it goes because confusingly it has 4 less pins than there are holes in the socket so you can plug it in wrongly very easily. The two pin connectors that bring in the charging power and connect the little speaker are also booby trapped in that there are more pins on the board and you have to note exactly which pins they go on (and the polarity in the case of the charging power one). author date text N. Cowie Monday 1st October 2018 Does anyone remember the Husky Hawk 8/16? I developed the BIOS and ported MS-DOS 3.21 onto this platform. It was as I remember the first hand held MD-DOS compatible computer reviewed in the April 1988 issue of Personal Computer World. I would love to see if I can pick one up from some where! (If you have one and run the DEBUG, try dumping memory at F000:000 - then check the text portion of the dump $-) author date text Markku Helli (Finland) Tuesday 25th September 2012 Hi guys! I used to write software for Husky Hawks in Finland. We had a system wich was developed for a Finnish Tobacco company for sales-reps to collect orders from their customers and report the sales into our system. ( A.C. Nielsen Finland Oy - haven''t been working there since -93/94 :) ) The system did not eventully end up in full production mainly due to bad modem connections back those days :) Programming language was C and the compiler was from Australia, Hi-Tech or something like that. Wrote all screen handling routines using ESCAPE codes which were really well documented in the manuals that came with the machine. Golden era of computing! Try writing a fully functional application now, with 56Kb of ram and some odd Kb''s for data $) author date text tinyloops (netherlands) Sunday 4th December 2011 the hawk computer is featured in the sf-movie "slipstream" from 1989. fast forward to 23 minutes and 45 seconds, and you get a glimpse of the machine! author date text GPSLVR (Netherlands) Monday 14th February 2011 Brian thanks for your input but this is to technical for me.\ As I wrote before I own two of this amazing machines complete with documentation. and like to know if somebody is interested to get them for hobby or museum. author date text GPSLVR (Netherlands) Tuesday 25th December 2007 I own 2 of those "HAWKS", extended with a worldport 2400 bps modem.\ Unfortunatly they will not power up anymore. When I measure the accu voltage, it seems to be ok. I did press the reset key. Entered X&P with poweron also Cntrl&C 56580 and poweron, but It will not revive. So what could be wrong. Any help will be welcome.\ Also if anybody is interessted in those "Husky Hawks"\ Feel free to contact me. author date text Webmaster (France) Tuesday 18th September 2007 Hi Mark. Thanks for your comment. If you read this please contact us! We would be very proud to publish more info the Hawk. 863 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230621103810/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=863 2023-06-21

The Husky Hawk has inherited the very solid case of the Hunter. The screen was well protected with a thick layer of plastic and all the ports had protective coverings. However, it was not designed to take the rough treatment that the Husky could endure. For example, it could not being used in the rain.

The chicklet keyboard featured a numeric and arrow key keypad. However, Husky could produce 'cut down' versions dedicated to particular applications.

Several peripheral could be connected to the Hawk.
The Sidebox was designed to be used on the move and was powered by Hawk's internal batteries. It was firmly locked to the Bus expansion and accepted a portable 1200 baud modem, an analogue to digital converter, RAM and ROM disk expansions and a Parallel interface.
The 'Homebase' expansion required a mains supply and automatically connected the Hawk to a 2400 baud modem and charger whenever it was placed on it.
A 3.5" disc drive unit called Oracle (made in Japan by Brother) and a bar-code reader also could be connected to the mini-DIN serial port.

The DEMOS operating system (for Disk EMulation Operating System) was a very compatible extended version of CP/M 2.2. All standard CP/M software - WordStar, CalcStar, Mbasic... - ran without problems. To overcome standard CP/M 80 column screen output, Husky used a 40 X 8 virtual window on a full size 80 x 25 screen.

For custom application writers, Husky also provided a special version of Locomotive BASIC, a superset of Microsoft BASIC, also well known of Amstrad users. This version took advantage of the special facilities of the Hawk: graphics handling, both serial and infra-red ports, bar-code reader and file management using physical or virtual RAM and ROM disks.