The Canon Cat used a
text-based user interface, without any pointer,
mouse,
icons, or
graphics. All data was seen as a long "stream" of text broken into several pages. Instead of using a traditional
command-line interface or
menu system, the Cat used its special
keyboard, with commands activated by holding down a "Use Front" key and pressing another key. Special "Leap keys" are held down to allow the user
incremental search for
strings of characters. The hardware consisted of a 9-inch (229 mm) black-and-white
monitor (80 x 24 character display, 672 x 344 resolution), a single 3½-inch 256
KB floppy disk drive, and an
IBM Selectric–compatible
keyboard. It uses a
Motorola 68000 CPU (like the Macintosh) running at 5
MHz, has 256 KB of
RAM, and an internal 300/1200 bit/s
modem. Setup and user preference data are stored in 8 KB of non-volatile RAM with battery backup. The array of
I/O interfaces encompasses one
Centronics parallel port, one
RS-232C serial port (
DB-25), and two
RJ11 telephone jacks for the modem loop. The total weight is . A range of application software was built into 256 KB of
ROM: a standard
office suite, telecommunications, a 90,000-word spelling dictionary, and user programming
toolchains for
Forth and
assembly language. Graphics routines were in ROM, and connectors for a
mouse or other
pointing device were never used. ==Reception==