Category: Geeks r Us
I'm trying to decide between getting an extra netbook for XP or a DOS palmtop. I already have a nice Acer Aspire One but might want a backup, not sure. Size-wise, They seem to be the same, since I'm going under 10 inches. If I get a palmtop, I'm looking for something with at least MS-DOS 5.0 (if I have to use their os and should be compatible with most DOS programs), decent memory, serial and parallel port connectivity, at least one pcmcia slot, a nice speed, and most of all, a built-in keyboard.
I'd only heard of the HP ones so went to look those up. At Wikipedia, I found out that the 200LX was the last DOS palmtop made by the company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_200LX
The cpu is a 80186. I'd expect at least a 80486 for a product made in 1996. In any case, the battery life is over 40 hours, way way more than a Windows machine. I've heard the memory can be upgraded to 32mb which still isn't that much, but I guess it's something. Thankfully, it has a pcmcia slot so I can just use a flash card for storage. I also found sites with huge amounts of software and accessories for these machines. So I went to
http://www.palmtoppaper.com
where they sell refirbished ones but the prices stopped me in my tracks. The lowest one is over $200 and it's got only 1mb on it! Ebay had nothing.
I decided then to look for something better than the HP systems or at least a nice compromise. Then, to further complicate things, I was looking up the KeyNote Companion and discovered a bunch of notetakers, some with braille support and some without, that run DOS and have built-in speech!
http://www.empowermentzone.com/bl_tech.txt
I could take or leave the braille, but if there's one thing I'd absolutely adore in a DOS computer, it's built-in speech. Some of these not only have that but cd rom drives and most likely sound blaster cards (a huge bonus in my book since I love high-quality sound), good cpu speeds, decent hard drive capacities, and the slots to add more. I'm especially interested in the BrailleX Compact and the SuperBraille-LT. The only bad thing is that these are not palmtops, but rather, full-sized laptops. Well, that, and the fact that I'll probably never be able to find any of the ones listed on that page, except maybe the Braille Lites, which won't do me any good. I never did get the specs on that Companion so don't know if it's a viable option, though I finally did track down someone who owns one.
So what should I do? Does anyone have a palmtop or notetaker that they'd be willing to sell? As with the palmtops, I want something that can run standard programs. Can anyone recommend a good machine to me? If I go the Windows route, it needs to be XP and needs to be a high-quality netbook if I don't get another Aspire One.