Ibm Pc110, The Game-Less Father Of Pandora


ThaDSman said:
...Mr. Craigix, did you steal the Pandora's name from that machine's prototype? <_<

No but I was absolutely amazed when I found out about it.
 
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horcasiofx720p.jpg


my oldest hand held, cost me more than my Palm tungsten when it was new, you can see the keyboard similarity to a Speccy, still works, just need some more lithium batteries, comes with three huge manuals, bigger by far than any manuals I have had with ANY PC or portable since, used to love being able to hack on the go, good times are a coming :D

oh! if it's a bit blurry, that's cos I was forced to scan it, cant find my camera cable and this PC doesn't have a Xd card reader
 
[quote name='skeezix' date='17 January 2010 - 12:13 AM' timestamp='1263687237'] I keep digging out my Portfolio, since it was actually quite powerful (being DOS based) .. but then I remember how annoying the storage cards were, and the battery :) (Open)Pandora ftw!

[/quote]


Get my games pack for the Portfolio here:

http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/games/pgames.zip

Sources for these games are in http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/programm/gamesrc.zip .. all of these games were built *ON* the Portfolio using Turbo-C onboard.. so you can see I was even then a compiler-onboard nutcase .. :)

Check out the other nice stuff for Atari Portfolio while you're at it: http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/
 
craigix said:
What about the Z88?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88

Also look at the evolution of it, from when it was called, um, the Pandora:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9574086@N02/sets/72157600856913881/

There is still a working one of those in my parents garage :|
 
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hobbyman II said:
horcasiofx720p.jpg


my oldest hand held, cost me more than my Palm tungsten when it was new, you can see the keyboard similarity to a Speccy, still works, just need some more lithium batteries, comes with three huge manuals, bigger by far than any manuals I have had with ANY PC or portable since, used to love being able to hack on the go, good times are a coming :D

oh! if it's a bit blurry, that's cos I was forced to scan it, cant find my camera cable and this PC doesn't have a Xd card reader

:,,,-)

800px-CASIO_FX-850P.jpg
 
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torpor said:
[quote name='skeezix' date='17 January 2010 - 12:13 AM' timestamp='1263687237'] I keep digging out my Portfolio, since it was actually quite powerful (being DOS based) .. but then I remember how annoying the storage cards were, and the battery :) (Open)Pandora ftw!


Get my games pack for the Portfolio here:

http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/games/pgames.zip

Sources for these games are in http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/programm/gamesrc.zip .. all of these games were built *ON* the Portfolio using Turbo-C onboard.. so you can see I was even then a compiler-onboard nutcase .. :)

Check out the other nice stuff for Atari Portfolio while you're at it: http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/
[/quote]

Will that stuff work on my 200LX?
 
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ashdjones said:
torpor said:
[quote name='skeezix' date='17 January 2010 - 12:13 AM' timestamp='1263687237'] I keep digging out my Portfolio, since it was actually quite powerful (being DOS based) .. but then I remember how annoying the storage cards were, and the battery :) (Open)Pandora ftw!


Get my games pack for the Portfolio here:

http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/games/pgames.zip

Sources for these games are in http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/programm/gamesrc.zip .. all of these games were built *ON* the Portfolio using Turbo-C onboard.. so you can see I was even then a compiler-onboard nutcase .. :)

Check out the other nice stuff for Atari Portfolio while you're at it: http://www.atari-portfolio.co.uk/library/

Will that stuff work on my 200LX?
[/quote]

Did I read a port of it to Pandora? Maybe you can remake them in some way of some of the Pandora capabilitie, but leave the retro feel :D
 
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It should work on the 200lx, since its just using bog-standard BIOS graphics calls to put up pixels, and I had a 200lx back in those days and seem to remember running the Portfolio .COM (DOS) files with ease on that thing .. but I also remember having Turbo C on the 200LX as well, so maybe I compiled the sources ..

But anyway, check it out, pretty nostalgic to find these old games floating around in the Portfolio archives .. and yes, I'll do a Pandora port, pretty much right away! :) It will be *very* retro-looking, maybe something I can enter in the "Crap Games for Pandora" competition, when there is (inevitably) going to be one .. :)
 
lardo4life said:
Nah, I'm just playin. I ended up wasting my money buying it.

Oh man, being in Australia is arse sometimes. :( Congrats on the cool purchase. Please return with a hands on review!
 
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It's sad that this form factor didn't take off back then, we could have avoided the whole awkward netbook form factor. I wonder what it was like to thumb type on the PC110? I prefer thumb typing on keyboards smaller than a full size keyboard, hence the reason I dislike netbooks.

EDIT: Heck, if they would have put a d-pad on the left where those 3 buttons are and another one or two buttons on the right they would have had console controls at the time beat. It was IBM though, when you think IBM you think beige computer cases with a command prompt on the screen instead of a gui. So it's not surprising.
 
second exodous said:
It's sad that this form factor didn't take off back then


It never went away completely, Sony in particular never stopped making tiny PCs. I think a combination of no onboard drives (in the era before high capacity flash) and short battery life (without unsightly 'High Capacity' ones hanging off the back) have made them niche products though.
 
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I think perhaps the Psion Organiser was before all of these devices... except maybe the casio... I think there were some programmable 'calculator-type' devices like the casio available from the early 80s. The psion organiser is from 1984. Great machine! I still love my 1985 casio databank too. Pity I don't have the scientific calculator version (these are worth a pretty penny too, and are still awesome watches). There were some very interesting programmable watches around in the 80s too, where you would dock the watch with a keyboard that came with it to program it.
 
If you follow the boards, you'll see that this is a repost of what was posted in Pickle's retro PC thread. Probably deserves to be here as well, but if you read the board as they're posted you've probably already seen this.
 
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