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The Poqet PC (Video Overview)
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Fleetingthought
Member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2011
- Messages
- 42
These are pretty awesome machines, I've managed to find one Classic that works and just recently picked up a Working Plus. Spent part of the weekend rebuilding a battery pack for the Plus and rounding up software that I could cram on a 2mb sram card. Definitely put you in a spartan mode when evaluating software for either machine.
Nice video!
Tom
Nice video!
Tom
Last edited:
matt314159
Member
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2015
- Messages
- 16
I saw that episode! Recently discovered The Computer Chronicles and have watched quite a few of their episodes. IDK if it's the same episode or not, but they did an episode on portable computers in 1989. Some fascinating computers showcased there! I remember one from ITC that had a giant antenna coming off the top of the screen which was a cellular modem!
Anyway nice little unit you have there--I can't imagine taking that thing apart with the welded plastic!
Anyway nice little unit you have there--I can't imagine taking that thing apart with the welded plastic!
rittwage
Veteran Member
My great uncle (in-law) was on the design team for the Poqet... If anyone has any questions, I could ask him for you.
kyodai
Experienced Member
Awwwww, someone from the design team of the Poqet! Geez, I'd like to do an interview with him - for about 5 hours! 
In my oppinion it was one of the best inventions of the time and it significantly influenced mobiel computing as well as some standards. I mean they kinda invented the PCMCIA standard from what i heard - my wife's living room laptop still uses a PCMCIA wifi card as of today. Also I'd be curious to hear about features that were cut out from the final version , their idea of going without backlight, how the "Atari" (DIP) Portfolio influenced the development and where and when development on the Portfolio and Poqet were splitting and what experiences from the portfolio lead to the Poqet design. Power saving features on these were also awesome, I could use my Poqet literally for over a month with just 2 AA-batteries. I wonder how they were able to create such an amazing Power saving model running standardized X86 hardware, i bet that was a huge challenge. Also i wonder if there were some prototypes that differed from the final retail version or even a "poqet 1.5" or so in the drawers. From what i know the "prime" was just 640KB RAM instead of 512KB. I mean it was sold to Fujitsu before any Poqet 2.0 was released and Fujitsu did not do much for development besides a flawed "Poqet Plus" which had backlight but a poor proprietary rechargable battery. Ah I'd be so curious what else your uncle could tell us about the development of this awesome machine. In my eyes it was THE breakthrough in Computer miniaturization.
In my oppinion it was one of the best inventions of the time and it significantly influenced mobiel computing as well as some standards. I mean they kinda invented the PCMCIA standard from what i heard - my wife's living room laptop still uses a PCMCIA wifi card as of today. Also I'd be curious to hear about features that were cut out from the final version , their idea of going without backlight, how the "Atari" (DIP) Portfolio influenced the development and where and when development on the Portfolio and Poqet were splitting and what experiences from the portfolio lead to the Poqet design. Power saving features on these were also awesome, I could use my Poqet literally for over a month with just 2 AA-batteries. I wonder how they were able to create such an amazing Power saving model running standardized X86 hardware, i bet that was a huge challenge. Also i wonder if there were some prototypes that differed from the final retail version or even a "poqet 1.5" or so in the drawers. From what i know the "prime" was just 640KB RAM instead of 512KB. I mean it was sold to Fujitsu before any Poqet 2.0 was released and Fujitsu did not do much for development besides a flawed "Poqet Plus" which had backlight but a poor proprietary rechargable battery. Ah I'd be so curious what else your uncle could tell us about the development of this awesome machine. In my eyes it was THE breakthrough in Computer miniaturization.rittwage
Veteran Member
He is very elderly but still very active and intelligent. I will see him in a couple weeks if you want to send me your contact information.
kyodai
Experienced Member
My e-mail is hiddenbelow.com@gmail.com - if you message me there i can reply back with a catalog of interview questions. Maybe i can write an interview or article about it on my palmtop website.
rittwage
Veteran Member
I am sorry I forgot about this for so long. His name is Jim...
I tried to get some interesting stories about it, but he said he was only under contract to build a power supply for it, nothing more exciting.
He did give me an old videotape he found in his belongings, but it seems to be only a 30 minute intro video. Not sure if it's archived anywhere- I would have to get a VCR up and running.
I tried to get some interesting stories about it, but he said he was only under contract to build a power supply for it, nothing more exciting.
He did give me an old videotape he found in his belongings, but it seems to be only a 30 minute intro video. Not sure if it's archived anywhere- I would have to get a VCR up and running.