Penpoint! was Re: 10 years

----- Original Message ----- From:Bob Shannon <mailto:bshannon@tiac.net> To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org> Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 11:41 PM Subject: Penpoint! was Re: 10 years Back when I worked at NEC, we had done a lot of work on a tablet-based portable PC called a VersaPad. The VersaPad was a fairly slick little 486SX based machine with a paper-white mono VGA display and a MicroTouch digitizer. It used an active, RF-linked 'pen' stylus with mouse-like buttons, etc. OMG... I remember seeing a tablet-based machine in a computer store a few years ago, when 486 SX/25s were still "top of the range" as far as laptops were concerned. A fast-talking salesman walked up to my Mum and then proceeded to demo a rather nice tablet-based PC, followed by a very nice Samsung NoteMaster laptop. I told my Mum to get the tablet PC. She said "The laptop's better". Guess which one she ended up buying... Yup. A Samsung NoteMaster 486S/25N. As proprietary as hell - Samsung BIOS, proprietary hard drive, floppy drive, RAM, name it. And now the 3.6V lithium battery is duff. And to top it all off, Tadiran (original manufacturer) don't make another one like it. And I'm trading her my Compaq Contura 420C (after I put Win3.1 and Word 6 on it) for it. Why do I get the feeling I'm making a huge mistake? From what I remember, the tablet PC had a 486 CPU, 8MB RAM and a 7" or so touch-sensitive screen you had to touch with a stylus. Oh, and it ran Pen Windows. And it was black. And IIRC it had a pull-out keyboard. BTW, anyone got a tablet based PC they feel like parting with? I'd love to get one simply to recapture some of the childhood I lost when my Mum chose the laptop over the tablet PC. Later. -- Phil. philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com <mailto:philpem@dsl.pipex.com> http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/