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My Dear Notebook PCs/PDAs
(last updated:10/29/06) click here for Japanese
(includes PCs (Italic ones) I come across through the business)
(excludes Desktop PCs)
EPSON HC-88 (beginning - mid. of
1980s)
An operating system so called "CP-M" was installed. You wouldn't believe, but
the storage device of this PC was micro-cassette and some small amount of memory. However,
I enjoyed programming a lot on this machine. I also bought an acoustic coupler for HC-88
and did enjoy BBS with 300 bps ! Unbelievable if I look back now ...
TOSHIBA J-3100SS (late 1980s - beginning
1990s)
80C86 + 1.5 M RAM (!) DOS based PC.
CASIO DK-2000 (late 1980s - 1998)
This wasn't really a PDA, but it was simply a calculator with some addressbook, scheduler,
and Japanese dictionary functionality. I used it for about 10 years and I've done battery
replacement for many times, I knew how to do it. One day I was replacing the battery and
failed to do it and the whole data has gone ...

TOSHIBA J-3100SX-041VW (beginning of 1990)
386SX/20 MHz with 2 MB RAM + 40 MB HDD. Windows 3.1 was running. Despite of the limited
capacity of HDD at that time, I installed a lots of Microsoft stuff. HDD was still very
expensive those days.

Psion Siena (1998 - 1999)
Psion is a famous manufacturer for PDAs from U.K. The user interface is very well
designed. Although I obtained this machine around '95, I didn' t use it till '97
since it only supports English characters and I thought I would never use it without
Japanese capability. However, after the bitter experience with Casio DK-2000
(above), I slowly started to use it as a scheduler. Honestly speaking, I was very
reluctant to use it in the beginning since it doesn't support Japanese characters. But I
started to realize the user interface is well designed and I liked it very much (except
the battery consumption). Again, I had a battery problem although Siena was warning.
I should have replaced batteries before it's too late.

TOSHIBA Libretto 50 (1997 -
2000)
I used to carry this one everyday between the office and home. I also used to
take this one with me whenever I go
abroad for business trip for E-mail / presentation / web browsing / webpage publishing
etc. Connecting PC to the telephone line via modem is always challenging thing in foreign
countries, but it is a lot of fun. It is the same with every time / every notebook PC, but I
wish if the battery could last longer... .
IBM WorkPad (8602-30J) (1999 - now)
Too many things to write about this PDA. The best PDA I've ever met. It shows its power in HotSync with PC, ready-to-use applications after power-on in mobile environment, and long-lasting battery (center in photo).

- see also here for some of my experience with IBM
WorkPad
SONY VAIO PCG-505V/CBP (1999 - 2000)
SONY VAIO PCG-Z505C/BP (2001 - )
IBM ThinkPad X20 (2001 - Oct. 2004)
Dell Latitude D600 (Nov. 2004 - Oct. 2006)
IBM (Lenovo) ThinkPad X60 (Oct. 2006 - )
Feel free to E-mail ykataoka@gol.com
for any comments, suggestions, feedbacks on this web site.
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