[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Hah. I have a Compaq 286 luggable from 1983. And it still works.

HEY, I had one of those too. I bought mine in '84. Used it in college and luggged that 22lbs around everywhere I went. Looked like I was carrying an old Singer sewing machine!!

EDIT: Oops, yours was the plasma display fancy dandy one...I had the original Compaq Portable found here:

http://oldcomputers.net/compaqi.html

I would have sworn is was not 28lbs...but 22lbs...weird. I do remember seating the individual memory chips on the expansion card by hand. Gawds I feel OLD...hahaha...thanks!

Originally Posted by Seosamh

I still read from stacks of dried wood pulp sheets glued together and permanently pigmented with letter shapes.

Man, those have to be old for sure...what is this dried wood pulp of which you speak? Where does it come from? Is it maybe made from old reclaimed barns?

Originally Posted by nrapallo

There's a nice write-up on the History of E-Books here.

I personally got started with the REB 1100 (320x480 B&W LCD) early 2003, but also had used a "crisp" Sony Clie SJ20 (320x320 monochrome LCD) mid 2003.

I haven't yet ventured out into the eInk reader realm, as they personally don't offer anything I would upgrade for/to. Even though I love gadgets, I prefer functionality over "looks" (I especially avoid iPods). OK, get me a color eInk reader, and then I'll recant the above.

Truth be told, the original Nuvomedia/Softbook readers "did" it right, just with the wrong (closed) business models!

I have a weird relationship with the present day eink displays. For the most part I am underwhelemed by them, but my real issue is the deisgns of the devices themselves. That and the price...heck, it's just complicated. Still, for reading outdoors there isn't a better reading device...except maybe that "glued wood pulp" stuff that Seosamh wrote about. Even then it might be superior to actual paper for many people who are sensitive to reflected light.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I can't say that I still read on it, but I have a full functional Psion II which I bought in the early 1980s ('83 or 84 - somewhere around then).

Oh, now that is cool!! Somewhere around here I have an old and still complete Sharp PC1250A "Student computer Kit" from around the same time period. The really funny part of it is, the complete programming language is printed on the back of the box it came in...I came across it 2nd hand, my actual first "computer" was an HP-25 I got around '77/'78ish. Learned be basics of programming on that thing.