Digest Articles Placing my "order" with Bryan, reponse to John, Anna by daloh@xxxxxxxx (Daryl L Hardes) From: daloh@xxxxxxxx (Daryl L Hardes) Subject: Placing my "order" with Bryan, reponse to John, Anna Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 00:48:14 -0400 John, Anna, and (especially) Bryan! Bryan, John says you still work for Poqet, don't know why I assumed otherwise. Well! Let me place my order, then... hey, it's a start. My tastes, like my cat, are simple: Classic-like battery life in a color, Windows-capable GeoWorks-running, Classic-size palmtop. That's all. But how to achieve this? I read that Sharp recently made a breakthrough in reflective color screens, the first to go to WINCE devices this summer. Reflective is the biggest key to long battery life, right? But the winner will be the company that puts them in multi-platform computers, set up that way despite Bill Gates, ala System Commander or some such. I want GeoWorks in there, my favorite that John mentioned, some will want Linox, etc. And I've got to have (sh-h...Windows) to run my research tools that require it. Screen resolution of 800x480 like the T100 Libretto should do. The second battery savings is in PC cards instead of hard drives. Despite huge drops in PC Card prices and gains in capacity, gigabyte cards are probably far off and expensive, I know. But full GeoWorks will fit on a modest card (I ran it plus Publish-It in 9 megs of hard-RAM in a T1000SE, no hard-drive) and will do most of my work. Windows (choice of flavors) can go on an optional PC Card hard drive. That keeps the initial cost down to compete with WINCE et.al. People will realize, "Hey, I can add Windows to this device when I have more money! This is a good investment." The third battery savings is in the new very low drain, hi-power chips coming out, right? John says that Fujitsu wants to be #1 in portables here. The way to do that is to beat Toshiba at their own game, and Toshiba covers the whole market, small to big, without sacrificing function. They calmly proffered the Libretto when the pundits said it would never go ("Too small a keyboard for anybody's fingers," one said, who like all the reviewers never mentioned plunking anybody's fingers on it but his). Despite the nay-sayers, now everybody's selling the Libretto, it's a hit. Sure, as John says, by and large Americans think bigger is better, as with cars, but there are a lot of small cars on the road now anyway, milllions more than in the '50's and '60's, and that's a big market. Here's a marketing slogan for Fujitsu's line: "Different strokes for different folks." Give the office fullbacks their 10# laptops, but don't forget that half the men have smaller than average fingers (mine are men's large-glove and do fine on the Poqet), and most women and kids have small fingers, too. That's 3/4-plus of the population gradually realizing they have no more need for large keyboards than large ill-fitting gloves. They are the emerging market, the days of portables as exclusive toys for plane-hopping executives are over. John's wife, for example, travels with her Poqet and a lot more women will follow suit. They'll want a full-powered palmtop that drops in their purses. And a lot of executive are learning that 10#, or even 5#, on top of luggage breaks shoulders. Light is finally in, and small will follow my crystal ball says. I know my "order" is a challenge in the Poqet-size, but the original was unthinkable for most. Bryan, you and this group have probably thought of all this and more. If I'm just echoing, hope the moral support helps. Anna, again thanks for the software tips, I'll try them. Got to run now to prepare for a UFO course I'm teaching tommorrow. :-) That's a neat symbol, John. Is :-( me if I don't ever get a color Poqet? And, yes, I noticed one of Fujitju's small notebooks, a nice 800x600 machine that Japan Direct imports. Pricey. Drawing on screen... hum. I'm remembering the 5-year-old UFO experiencer who regularly vanished from the house, her mother frantic. After precisely telling me more about UFOs than I knew, she wanted to draw on my Poqet screen the bald-headed big-eyed playmates she trapses off with. "Give me a break!" I told her, faking a grimace, "I'll get a Poqet with on-screen drawing when I'm rich." OK, Bryan. Order on-screen drawing for me on my color Poqet palmtop. Daryl