Comet Notebook: 1997 bulky 'handheld' computer/netbook


ObiKKa

ObiKKa

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Well, one Youtube creator has produced this new video of that Comet Notebook computer made in 1997 that looked like a cross between the upcoming Pyra handheld here and basically any of those old 'Netbook' style portable computers that used to make the rounds back in the 2000's decade (Long before the enduring popularity of the ultra-portable laptops of today). And he had also posted about it on his Patreon account.

However, the material of the rather small screen basically looks like that on any scientific calculator that you know of or may have seen (Casio, Texas Instruments type, etc.).

https://www.patreon.com/posts/exploring-comet-18333654 (Apr 23 at 12:36am)
Description: "It's a portable computer, of sorts? More of a pocket organizer that hastily took on the form of a laptop. And runs on AA batteries. And came from Turkey. Yeah this is an odd one, haha."

Youtube link:
Exploring the Comet Notebook: 1997 Computer. Thing.
 
Before he turned it on, it reminded me of the original EeePC (the 701 model) thanks the the wide screen bezel. That's higher resolution than a lot of the graphing calculators I'm familiar with. It's also quite a lot bigger than even the Pyra, but it has a similar looking hinge mechanism. A lot of laptops from the 1990s had that type of hinge though, and it still works fine actually.

Absolutely no idea what chip that's running on - those black epoxy blobs usually cover chips directly etched into the PCB I think. Turkey seems a little far from the ex-soviet bloc to be getting any of that tech, but we don't know where that PCB actually came from. Looks to be about as powerful as something from the early 1980s though, though I can't imagine running Elite or The Sentinel on it ever. Maybe those graphing calculators are more on the ball. Certainly not really comparable to the IBM palmtops, but then probably far more affordable for the average turk.
 
It was a pretty entertaining video. I wanna see him review an IBM PC110, but those would probably be too hard for him to come by if he's not actively searching. I would lend him mine, but I'm afraid of shipping my baby anywhere.
 
TrashyMG said:
Think IBM did it better in 1995

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/43275/IBM-Palm-Top-PC110/
Click to expand...
The manuals they're quoting as related on that link seem a bit esoteric; an Acorn Springboard which seems to have been an ARM2 system on a full length ISA card probably running an early version of Arthur (A Risc operating system by THURsday) locally, which is probably about twice the volume of that palmtop, and a DEC PDP/11 compatible minicomputer which is definitely larger!
 
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