Vitaly Minko – Page 7 – Obsession with Handheld Computers

Recovering OS on Sony VAIO VPC-P11Z9R is as easy as pressing one key

I was surprised how easy it is to recover the operating system on Sony VAIO Type P. You just need to power on the device using the ASSIST key and follow insturction on the screen. That’s it!

Recovering antenna covers of OQO Model 01

The case of OQO Model 01 is made of metal, it’s quite sturdy. However, the antenna covers are made of transparent plastic, which is prone to cracking.

In order to recover the cracked antenna covers I made a 3D model of the original antenna cover (antenna_cover.stl) and printed it on a photopolymer printer. I didn’t like the result, because the wall covering the antenna was too thin and fragile. So I decided to thicken the wall and sightly modified the original model. You can download the final model for 3D printing here: antenna_cover_fat.stl.

3D printed cover is painted and mounted.

3D model of the original cover printed on a photopolymer printer.

From left to right, top to bottom: Painted "fat" model, not painted "fat" model, original cover, not painted "thin" model.

From left to right, top to bottom: Painted "fat" models, not painted "fat" models, original covers, not painted "thin" models.

From left to right, top to bottom: Painted "fat" model, not painted "fat" model, original cover, not painted "thin" model.

Top to bottom: original cover, painted "fat" model.

Not painted "thin" models.

The original antenna covers.

The price of addiction

Source

Running SimCity on Psion 5MX

Classic city-building computer game SimCity was also released for EPOC32 operating system. I recently opened a new box and tried to run it the game a Psion 5MX. 20+ year old floppy was successfully read by Libretto 70CT floppy drive. The game runs flawlessly. And the save files are compatible with the DOS version of the game.

Handhelds in Computer History Museum

Computer History Museum in Mountainview, CA is the largetst computer museum in the world. It contains very interesting exhibition of mobile computers, including handhelds.
Here is a small gallery of extraordinary items, like PalmPilot prototypes.

Lots of other remarkable photos from this museum, which are not related to handheld computers are presented in the Computer History Museum gallery.

You can take a virtual visit to CHM here: Computer History Museum, Mountain View, United States — Google Arts & Culture or CHM Revolution Tour – Mobile Computing: PalmPilot.

X-raying vintage handhelds

Let’s suppose you have a new never opened Apple Newton MessagePad 120 and you want to figure out whether the batteries are inserted into the device. How do you do this? Yes, you do x-ray examination.

This Hewlett-Packard HP 100LX is still used on a daily basis

I met the owner of this device few days ago. The guy told me that he repaired this device by himself, and now uses it for programming microcontrollers. He writes programs in C and Pascal. The main advantages he mentioned were small size and extremely long battery life.