Interesting article on hand held mini computers


Mr_Loon

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Just came across an interesting article on hand held mini computers.

They look more like ancestors of the Pandora than proto netbooks to me :)

Was surprised that I'd probably not heard of half of them, never knew Apple had once sold a mini PC with a keyboard.

The article does nothing to dispel my thoughts that Japan is the great untapped market for the Pandora / Pandora 2.
 
Nice! I've heard of most of them though (Except the Olivetti one - That looks nice). But I agree - Most of these are more precursors of the pandora than of the netbook. Particularly when you consider that the most successful of the mentioned machines - The Psion 3, the HP 95lx - in actuality were whole familys (Psion 3, 3a, 3c, 5, 5mx; HP 95lx, 100lx, 200lx, 600lx; The Journada series) of machines in the palm top form factor.
 
Oh how I yearn to return to proper keyboards like the Poqet or Psion. Hate these shitty chicklet ones they dump on everything :(

I almost want to manufacture my own netbook/minilaptop just so I can have a decent keyboard (My now-broken Samsung Netbook has a lovely keyboard, my new(er) Asus EEE netbook has a shit chicklet)
 
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Describe "decent"

My definition would be a hard-topped key, with a significant reduction in resistance mid press and a firm upward spring
 
My "premium" keyboard would be an n-key rollover keyboard with hard, non-slip (rough surface) keys with a slight concave. No "chicklet gaps" between, which allows you to make the keys slightly bigger.

Unfortunately the Pandora's keyboard is kind of the antithesis of what I like - they keys are glossy, spaced, and convex. I'm not sure how easy it is to make keymats, but I would love one with concave keys and the plastic more like the gaming buttons.
 
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Model M... enough said... well, silent model M would be even better...
 
Model M also serve as a nice improvised blunt weapons... always usefull for your lan parties...
 
Interesting.

But the prices...wow.

Citing one line from there

In the 1990s, sub-notebooks weren’t popular outside of Japan. In the West, buyers wanted as much screen space and performance as they could get, but in Japan, a culture that favours the neat and the compact, punters were willing to pay for portability.
If any of these "pandoras" has been in my price range then, my life would have been different.
 
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EEp.. I developed for most of those, owned half of them. Chriiist.

The Apple eMatre wasn't really a PC at all per se.. it was a Newton with a keyboard, in clamshell and full size form, more or less.

I still have my Atari Portfolio :)

jeff
 
If I were to get into a fight at a LAN party, I'd prefer having my Husky Hunter 2 in my hands. Solid aluminium, built to be able to survive being run over by military vehicles, and on-topic in this thread :)
 
It would be rather difficult to put the pandora in the position of being a forerunner to netbooks, which is the angle of the article...
 
It would be rather difficult to put the pandora in the position of being a forerunner to netbooks, which is the angle of the article...
When did the Pandora start production?? 2008. I think that was the same time as netbooks?
 
EEEpcs late in 2007, and the rest of the herd half a year later or so. 
 
Yeah, those were the days.....

I remember having a client in late '90's who pulled out a little Toshiba Libretto at one of our meetings....blew me away at the time to see windows on such a tiny device....

Ended up getting the 110CT Libretto some time later....great little device...

Had several other of the devices in that article....Jornadas, EEEpc, Dell Mini9....

Now, it's all boring, lookalike, Android tablets all over the place....

At least I have my Pandora 1Ghz and my little Nokia N900 to play with!

;)
 
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