Yup, if it is a GRID 386, then he's better off with an IBM ThinkPad 730T,
I've recently picked one up and it's great. That is if you run PenPoint
on it. Don't run Windows 95. Yuck. :) The problem with the 730T's is
that they have no ports whatsoever, until you buy a port replicator or a
field kit.
I don't know why they call it a port replicator when it doesn't replicate
anything. But there it is. These 730T's can be had for about $75. The
replicators are about $30. But keep in mind, these are 486sl's running at
25 or 30Mhz - so they're slower than Newts.
These come usually with 8MB of RAM and a 100Mb IBM type III ATA hard
drive... But beware, you WILL want to get a port replicator, else they're
useless. I'm still waiting for mine. I managed to get penpoint on it by
mounting the PCMCIA disk in my desktop which I bought a PCMCIA drive bay
for several years ago...
The screens on these are beautiful 640x480 16 grayscale. They're really
like paper. Very readable. I'm envious that my MP2100 doesn't have the
same look.... The pens aren't touch sensitive per say, they're magnetic.
You can turn on a mouse like feature where if you hover the pen over the
screen you will see a pointer appear. When you touch the screen it
writes....
The AT&T EO 880 is a much nicer machine, but not an Intel based at all.
These are close to impossible to get. I just got a DOA one. :( But
they've got VGA out, serial, parallel, ps/2 keyboard *AND* SCSI!!! as
well as a Type III PCMCIA, and internal 64Mb disk. There's even a cell
phone kit that turns the EO into a celular fax/data/phone. You might
remember back in 93 or so AT&T ran a bunch of commercials saying "Have you
ever sent a fax from the beach? You will... and the company to bring it
to you - AT&T" But they failed miserably because our mutual green friends
killed it off. :)
I wish mine was working. Sigh.... Alas, it seems to have a dead ROM
board.
Beware though, PenPoint's handwriting recognition sucks ass - just like
the original Newton 1.x devices.... Worse yet, it doesn't recognize
gestures while you write. It's modal for fuck's sake! You have to tap a
pen icon to switch to editing/writing. Yuck. (This applies to both
EO and the 730T, and possibly the GRID.)
As a trivia question - the EO uses the Hobbit 94010 CPU. The original
Newton plans were to use the same chip!
Personally I'd love to have an EO sized Newton with lots of RAM and the
64Mb hard drive the EO's have running Newton Intelligence 2.1 of course.
:)
On Sat, 18 Mar 2000, Victor Rehorst wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Mar 2000 ThisOlNewt@aol.com wrote:
>
> > I was browsing e-bay and came across this......
> >
> > http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=284377339
>
> It's a GRiD. I guess you could call it part of the first generation of
> pen-based computers (along with the AT&T Eo, and a few others). This is
> obviously pre-Newton. I've never actually seen or used one, but I think
> Bill Davis has one. Off the top of my head, they run Intel 80386
> processors and used to use Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing (a special hacked
> together version of Windows).
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