by Chuck Horowitz
3Com 's Palm Computing Division (Mountain View, CA) will introduce a new PalmPilot. The Pilot III is thinner, has an IrDA port, 2 MB of memory and a revised operating system (Palm OS 3.0). Priced at $399, the unit will be the replacement for the PalmPilot Professional. There will be an upgrade for $129 for the PalmPilot Professional and Personal editions, which will give them the Palm OS 3.0 system, 2MB of memory and an infrared port. Palm Computing can be contacted at 800-638-3266 or www.palmpilot.3com.com.
Apple Computer, Inc. (Cupertino, CA) has discontinued development of the Newton operating system for handheld devices and has also discontinued the MessagePad and eMate products. Apple will provide support for their installed base and offer similar devices based on the Mac OS starting in 1999. Apple can be reached at 800-462-4396 or www.apple.com.
IBM Corporation (Armonk, NY) has introduced the Travelstar line of hard drives for high end notebook computers; the 86S is a 17mm, 8.1 Gigabyte drive and the 36N is a 9.5mm, 3 Gigabyte hard drive. Both drives will be available as upgrades for certain notebooks from OEMs. IBM can be contacted at 800-426-4968 or www.storage.ibm.com.
IBM Corporation (Austin Research Lab) has developed an experimental CMOS microprocessor that can operate at 1GHz (that's 1 Gigahertz). This technology will eventually be combined with IBM's recent CMOS 7S copper chip technology. This ultimately means simultaneous processing of data, voice and video and fast searches of large databases. (Can a notebook version be far behind?).
The Mead Corporation (Dayton, OH) makes a large variety of computer accessories among which are carrying cases for computers and their accessories. I recently got to try out their Zip Drive Bag. Their brochure indicates that the bag carries "a zip drive and all of its' accessories as well as 2 zip disks." I found that it's true, the bag will hold everything that they show quite comfortably; however, I also have a power supply for the drive which would not fit into the carrying case without tearing it. It's a nice product that does what it says. I recommend that they make a case that will also carry the power supply and while we're on this recommending kick, it should also carry the battery pack for the Zip drive. Mead can be reached at www.meadweb.com.
DynaFirm (Los Alamos, MN) has the CardJet, a business card scanner that attaches to the PalmPilot. This battery operated business card scanner can store up to 200 business cards in its on-board memory. The scanned image appears on the PalmPilot screen where you can add notes. When you connect to your computer and HotSync, the CardJet software transfers all of the scanned cards to the PalmPilot Desktop. CardJet OCR (sold separately) software converts the data to standard ASCII text in Palm format. With this software you can import the ASCII data into the PalmPilot address book application or into Microsoft Outlook, ACT, Goldmine and other Personal Information Managers (PIMs). DynaFirm can be contacted at 800-467-1459 or www. Dynafirm.com.
Global Village Communications, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) has combined two necessities of the modern Road Warrior into one PC Card. A PC Card that contains a 56Kbps fax/modem and a 10BaseT network connector. The price for this little gem is $299. Sorry Mac Users, you get to pay $80 more for your version (I guess that you're used to this kind of treatment though). Global Village can be contacted at 800-736-4821 or www.globalvillage.com.
Fujitsu PC Corporation (Milpitas, CA) makes the LifeBook 585 Tx, a notebook computer with a 233MHz MMX Pentium processor, 32MB of SDRAM, 2MB of VRAM, a 4 Gigabyte hard drive, a 20X CD-ROM drive, a 33.6Kbps data/fax/voice modem, a 12.1 inch XGA TFT screen, two Type II PC Card slots, a MediaConnect block (with an infrared port, a MIDI port, a serial port, an S-Video port, a TV Output and an external floppy drive). The unit weighs 7.4 pounds before you connect the MediaConnect block, the power brick and the external floppy drive. These items bring the weight to almost 10 pounds. All this weight is priced at $3,699. Fujitsu can be reached at 888-466-8434 or www.fujitsu-pc.com.
Symantec Corporation (Cupertino, CA) has the beta version of Norton Mobile Essentials, an application that will enable notebook users to diagnose and resolve problems and configure their computers. Included is the Norton Location Controller which lets you set and change dialing settings, default printers, Windows startup group, network drives and time zones. The Norton Connection Doctor troubleshoots your system by checking IRQs, Com ports and phone line clarity. Also included is Norton Before You Go which will help you prepare for your trip by checking the modem and hard drive, backing up data and giving you information on worldwide cities. Mobile Essentials Version 1.0 cost $79. Check Symantec's web site for a free download of the beta. Symantec can be contacted at 800-674-4624 or www.symantec.com.
Well, I've finally received my "Dream Machine." I now have a Toshiba Libretto 100CT. That's 166MHz MMX Pentium processor, 32MB of RAM (expandable to 64MB), a 2 Gigabyte hard drive (can go to 4.1 if you can afford it), a 6.1 inch TFT active-matrix color screen, two Type II PCMCIA Card slots, an external (PCMCIA Card) 3.5 inch floppy drive and a port expander (serial, parallel, monitor, keyboard and mouse ports). I also have an enhanced port replicator (same as the port expander with a PS/2 connection and a Type III PCMCIA card slot). I will let you know how well it performs when I get back from PC EXPO in New York. I'm also using a 20X PCMCIA Card CD-ROM from Eiger Labs, Inc. which I will also report on.
Chuck Horowitz is a HAL-PC member and can be reached at 713-739-4893 or BrisAssoc@aol.com or chuckh@hal-pc.org.
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