[Thinkpad] OT: Re: solid state thinkpad precedents

Frank K-F wrote:
> Andrew, Vicky et al..
>
> been following your conversions to silent machines with flash drives.
> Interesting but not quite new.

Indeed the solid state computer is not a new idea.

I also have had HP portables devoid of spinning disks (zero spindle?).
The first was a HP200LX palmtop (DOS 5.0 and applications in ROM plus 2
Mb RAM for the user) which runs (I still have it) on 2 AA cells for
weeks. I use it for all my phone numbers and appointments because it
almost never locks up (3 or 4 times in the past 10 years) plus it's
pocket sized.
My second venture into spindle free computing was the HP Omnibook line,
first a Omnibook 300 (386 20(?)Mhz 10Mb) then a Omnibook 425 (486 25 Mhz
(?)with a 175 Mb flash card). Both had Word and Excel in ROM along with
Windows 3.1. Powered from a NiMh battery but could run off AA cells.

I really like having the OS and applications in ROM, they can't get
corrupted and you can reset the computer from ROM in about 15 minutes.
I suppose this didn't make any sense for the industry, a simple machine
that just keeps working loaded with applications and OS that couldn't be
upgraded. No cash flow for software or hardware vendors.
So they have all been discontinued.

The solid state 560x is my attempt to combine some of the advantages of
the Omnibook 425 (silence, low power consumption) with some of the
advantages of a more modern computer (color display more recent OS).
So far I'm pretty pleased although my increasing contact with Win2K and
XP is really showing up how clunky Win98 is.

-- 
Andrew in Ann Arbor
technology is the answer, what was the question?
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