In 1993 HP produced what can arguably be considered the grandfather of the modern netbook, the Omnibook 300. Also voted one of PC Worlds greatest PC's ever - not that I endorse their opinions in any way shape or form!
For the day, this packed a lot of technology into a small form factor: 16.3 x 28.2 x 3.6 cm, 1310g. Compare this with the EEE PC at 16.5 x 22.5 x 3.5cm, 900g.
386SXLV 20MHz Ultra low Voltage processor
2-6MB RAM
10MB Flash disk (12V Linear flash to begin with, CF/PCMCIA compatibility later) but it could hold 3 such cards
OS/Apps in ROM (DOS 6.2/Windows 3.1/Word/Excel)
640 x 480 16 Level grayscale 9-inch un-backlit display
Built in fax-modem
Serial, parallel, IR ports
Real instant on - static processor architecture could be stopped mid-clock-cycle and the RAM self-refreshed
...and the HP "paw" mouse which I rather like. To the extent that I have had the Omnibook 600's and 800's that succeeded it, too.
But the killer - 9 hours battery life from a 1600MaH 4.8v NiMH battery pack. At a pinch you could also drop in 4 AA alkalines too (or modern NiMH AA's for nearer 15 hours!)
A bit of calculation shows that this thing draws less than a watt. I have a portable book-sized solar panel that is rated for 2.2W. Hmmmm.
BTW, the 3 linear flash cards (Sundisk SDP10's) I have - which have no wear levelling or error correction - still work fine, 15 years on. Admittedly, they require a PCMCIA 12V supply which tends to cause modern Cardbus slots a bit of apoplexy but probably indicates that the bits are fairly soldily written. ROM-based DOS/Win 3.1 doesn't exactly pummel the drives with writes either.
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Friday, 6 June 2008
The HP 100LX
Back in the early 90's, when HP was still an innovative company with decent US R&D and manufacturing operations, they produced several machines that effectively anticipated the whole UMPC thing years in advance. Through the luck of my job at the time, I got hands-on experience with them all and my involvement with lightweight computing began.
The first of these devices was the 100LX - there was an earlier 95LX but the 100 was a lot better. This packed an MS-DOS 3.3 machine with PIM apps, Lotus 1-2-3 and a basic database into a pocketable clamshell form factor (6¼ x 3½ x 1 inches) which ran off 2 AA batteries. It had a PCMCIA slot that could take flash and SRAM cards and a serial port for mobile phone/modem connectivity on the road (the later 700LX even had a cradle for a Nokia phone built into the lid). The approx. 5-inch monochrome (4 greys) LCD was 640x200 and supported CGA graphics.
The processor ran at 7.5 MHz but a sizable modding community built up - processor overclocking, processor replacement and upgrading the soldered-on memory were all possibilities. The base model had 1MB of RAM but up to 96MB was possible (OK, on the slightly later 200LX anyway).
Such was the power of these machines that they still command good prices and support for such elderly tech.
The first of these devices was the 100LX - there was an earlier 95LX but the 100 was a lot better. This packed an MS-DOS 3.3 machine with PIM apps, Lotus 1-2-3 and a basic database into a pocketable clamshell form factor (6¼ x 3½ x 1 inches) which ran off 2 AA batteries. It had a PCMCIA slot that could take flash and SRAM cards and a serial port for mobile phone/modem connectivity on the road (the later 700LX even had a cradle for a Nokia phone built into the lid). The approx. 5-inch monochrome (4 greys) LCD was 640x200 and supported CGA graphics.
The processor ran at 7.5 MHz but a sizable modding community built up - processor overclocking, processor replacement and upgrading the soldered-on memory were all possibilities. The base model had 1MB of RAM but up to 96MB was possible (OK, on the slightly later 200LX anyway).
Such was the power of these machines that they still command good prices and support for such elderly tech.
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