Is This A First?

[Karel Jansens]

The Atari Portfolio may have been the first intel based palmtop, but the daddy has to be the 200LX:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/comput...c=1088&st=1

I put loads of DOS games and apps on mine, it's great hearing Outrun through a mini PC Speaker or squinting at a very blurry Commander Keen (The pong game in is great though!).

I even have Windows (3.0) on it! Thanks to the PCMCIA slot it has a 1gig CF drive.


Actually, I believe the Portfolio was preceded (albeit narrowly) by a few other interesting machines, a.w. the bodacious Poqet PC. It may have been a tad bigger than the Portfolio, but it more than made up for that by usefulness.

If you're really into portable gear, this guy has an excellent site:

http://www.ericlindsay.com/

Check out the palmtop section.

 

[ashdjones]

Yeah that's a good site, been there before. You're right though, the Poqet PC was definately before the Portfolio.

If anyone's seen Terminator 2, the Portfolio is the machine John Conner uses to nick money from the cash machine (ATM).

http://www.geocities.jp/akira_1999_akira/Home.htm

Really good Japanese site with loads of photos of palmtops.

 

[Karel Jansens]

How about the Psion MC range? Certainly not palmtops, but hugely sexy for their day (and equally expensive). I considered an MC400 back in '89 when I needed my first laptop. The consideration was brief though, as for the same kind of money I got a Taiwanese 386sx 40MB monochrome 10 kg beastie. Would you believe that that laptop still runs today?

 

[ashdjones]

How about the Psion MC range? Certainly not palmtops, but hugely sexy for their day (and equally expensive). I considered an MC400 back in '89 when I needed my first laptop. The consideration was brief though, as for the same kind of money I got a Taiwanese 386sx 40MB monochrome 10 kg beastie. Would you believe that that laptop still runs today?



I bet the screen on that Taiwanese machine blurs like hell right?

The psion one is interesting, i'd never even heard of it before!

I had an amstrad PC640, described as 'luggable'.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=195

Didn't even have a hard drive, ran entirely on Floppies, what a joke.

 

[Karel Jansens]

How about the Psion MC range? Certainly not palmtops, but hugely sexy for their day (and equally expensive). I considered an MC400 back in '89 when I needed my first laptop. The consideration was brief though, as for the same kind of money I got a Taiwanese 386sx 40MB monochrome 10 kg beastie. Would you believe that that laptop still runs today?



I bet the screen on that Taiwanese machine blurs like hell right?

The psion one is interesting, i'd never even heard of it before!

I had an amstrad PC640, described as 'luggable'.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=195

Didn't even have a hard drive, ran entirely on Floppies, what a joke.

Sure it blurs; this is from the days when nothing moved on computer screens. I installed Tetris on it and that was almost unplayable.

I tried the Amstrad out, but it had a horrible CGA def screen. My laptop was VGA backlit heaven in comparison (It still has WP 5.1 and Six-Oh installed on it; sometimes I just boot it up and tap away in melancholy) ánd it had an empty half-sized ISA expansion port. I have an actual 14k4 faxmodem in there. Talk about your information superhighway... :rolleyes:

The Psion MC range was the failure that became the Psion Series 3 and successors. Mind you, my first Psion (a Series 3a) cost me about the same (with accessories) as that Amstrad went for in '87. Haven't we gone all cheapo, eh?

 

[ashdjones]

Yeah it's crazy how the world has gone gadget mad, especially the UK. When I was a kid I found it unfair that all the really cool stuff was made for business users. Everything went to the smartphone side, then the media player, then the chaos of convergence (remember when people said this would never happen?!). Thanks to all that though, the Pandora is possible!