On the PC110 (aka PT110 in Japan) - It's a neat machine, you can get
the base unit (486sx33 CPU, VGA DSTN color display, 8 Mb RAM, 4 Mb Flash
internal bootable drive, 1 compact flash slot, 2 stacked PCMCIA type 2
slots, IRDA builtin, no hard drive (Add your own PCMCIA HD), no port
replicator, for about $320-$400 US.
I paid $400 for mine and am happy with it - it's a little hard to type
on, but its light weight means I can carry it all day easily. It's what
keeps me in data until I get a full wearable going! I already had
PCMCIA hard drives. I've bought new batteries so I can swap in fresh
batteries through the day (get about an hour of use on a PCMCIA HD under
DOS, no power consumption, original 1200 mAh batteries; newer
batteries, Sony NP-F550 1500 mAh camcorder Li-Ion batteries, do better.)
It's a full PC, just small - Want to run Dos, or Win95, or Linux, or
OS/2, or FreeBSD, or anything else you can boot on a desktop machine?
Just make a PCMCIA Hard Drive, or a compact flash disk or PCMCIA flash
or SRAM disk, bootable with that OS & set the configuration right, and
reboot. I run Dos 6.22 on mine right now, on a 40 Mb PCMCIA HD, am
moving towards a 40 Mb CF disk, a 4 Mb SRAM disk for swap space, and
either another 4 Mb SRAM disk or a 10 Mb Flash type 1 disk for data,
removeable if I need to use a modem or net card. Still thinking on how
to use it, as I gather tools <G> May use a 171 Mb PCMCIA HD I have,
instead - thinking...
You can upgrade to a 16Mb RAM memory card instead of the 4Mb basic
card, giving you 20 Mb total (there's mention of taking the memory chips
off the old 4Mb card & soldering them onto the motherboard for 24 Mb
total, sounds fun!) You can overclock the machine (to 40 MHz) by
rewiring the clock generator, carefully as it's an SMD chip. One
gentleman thickened the case to allow you to use just the upper PCMCIA
slot (instead of both!) for a type III HD, leaving the lower slot free
(That's a "10 soldering iron" project, looks like, but would be REALLY
handy!) There's a lot of interesting software (want to use the PC110 as
an IR remote control? Can do.)
For use as a wearable, I'd think the docking station/port replicator
would be a good thing to add [you get a VGA port, PS/2 keyboard & mouse
ports, a parallel port & a serial port, plus a floppy connector] for the
keyboard & the heads-up display, I don't have one yet.
Much of the docs on the PC110 are in Japanese as it was built for that
market; The PC110 mailing list helps support my machine. IBM decided
that it wouldn't sell in the US (Bah. For some folks, to see one is to
want one; They're still selling them, just by word of mouth.) The
keyboard's a standard keyboard (touch type on it! well sorta <G>) but
keycaps are in Japanese...
see http://Toy.Cabi.Net/ for a Linux installation mention of the
PC110, also http://209.25.84.121/ ("The Gadgeteer"), a good overview of
the whole PDA/Mini computers/Wearables field, Julie likes gadgets <G>
I've thought of just getting a power cord to a battery pack on my belt
& running the PC110 that way, instead of building a wearable, it's that
usable of a machine (and I am 6'5" and have big hands.)
Mark Willis
Jesse wrote:
>
> That's an IBM PC110. As sold in Japan. pocketcomp doesn't advertise
> it as such because IBM complained that lots of people were calling IBM
> US asking about it.
>
> On Tue, Apr 14, 1998 at 07:10:54PM -0600, Bill Nordstrom wrote:
> > Check out http://www.pocketcomp.com At $899-$1299 this might make a
> > good computer for those of us who don't want to have to build from
> > scratch. I don't know about an external video output but it would seem
> > suited for audio input/output just fine.
> >
> >
>
> --
> jesse reed vincent -- 
--
> 860/685 4269 -- 5344 wesleyan station / middletown, ct / 06459
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> --------------------------------------------------------------
> After all, it's not every day you meet up with an evil power
> -M. Bulgaklov
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