Blast from the Gadget Past

I was rummaging through my junk box and found this old gadget from the mid-1990s. It is the Hewlett Packard OmniGo 100 a PDA released by HP about the time Palm Pilots were being released. It has a clamshell design with a built-in keyboard and stylus, but like many new laptops it can be folded back into a tablet position and the screen will rotate, though you have to manually press the rotate button. It was pretty cool for its day. It was powered by two AA batteries and an easily changed out backup battery. That backup battery was its Achilles heel though, as they were pricey and only lasted a week or so. Amazingly, when I found it in my junk box today I inserted two AA batteries and it turned right on, but immediately complained about needing to change the backup battery. I used it for a while two decades ago before getting a Palm Pilot which was much better. They actually worked pretty well, the OmniGo not so much.

For size comparizon, here is the HP OmniGo 100 next to my MacBook Pro 15" and a standard size mouse. Though still pocketable, you had to have large pockets.



Here is a close up of it in clamshell configuration. Notice the Book Reader app. Cannot remember if I ever used that.



And here it is closed up. And yes I still have the stylus which fits into the case. I had it out trying to get the touchscreen to work. The keyboard worked but I got not response from the touchscreen. Yep, pretty scratched up, but it has lived in my junk box for 20+ years!



ETA: I found the Palm IIIx in another junk box. It replaced the OmniGo as my PDA. Unfortunately it would not power on though. I still had it and its old serial port connection cradle.

[Hemmi]

I still have my Palm M100 that I bought probably 17 years ago. Can't get it to synch on my computer anymore but I can bluetooth stuff to it. My favorite solitare game ever is only on my old Palm. Can't find a newer version available at all.