by Chuck Horowitz
IBM Corporation’s Almaden Research Center (San Jose, CA) has developed a new disk drive technology that can greatly increase the storage capacity of a 3½ inch platter. IBM will use this technology, called giant magneto resistive (GMR) heads, in their new 16.8 gigabyte desktop PC drive called the DeskStar 16GP. Hopefully, a notebook version is not far off.
Micro Express, Inc. (Irvine, CA) makes the NP8200MMX notebook computer. This unit has a 200mhz MMX Pentium processor, 24MB of RAM with 256KB of Level 2 cache, a 2.1 gigabyte hard drive, and a 20X CD. It also has a TV/Video out port and Zoom Video so that presentations can be displayed on a television monitor. The price for this unit is $2,999. Micro Express can be reached at 800-989-9900 or www.microexpress.com.
Palm Computing (Mountain View, CA), Motorola, Inc. and PageMate have added paging capabilities to everyone’s favorite PDA (the PalmPilot). Shipping early this year, the add-in card (which replaces the upgrade you just recently installed) will allow your Pilot to receive both text and numeric paging messages. The card replaces your existing card and has flash memory, 2 MB of ROM, a user interface and a paging application. PageMart will provide the paging services at a cost of $19.95 to $24.95 a month and both Palm Computing and PageMart will sell the cards. The card will cost about $169.00. Palm Computing can be contacted at 800-881-7256 or www.palmpilot.com.
LEK Technologies, Inc. (Amarillo, TX) has the FutureNote 2000 with a 200MHz MMX Pentium processor, 16MB of RAM (expandable to 128MB), a 1.3 gigabyte hard drive, a 12.1 inch Dual Scan Display, a 20X CD drive, a 3½ inch floppy drive, 16-bit ESS sound adapt er with3D sound and stereo speakers and a TouchPad. This unit is priced at $1,849. LEK can be reached at 800-284-8459 or www.lektech.com.
Trogon Computer Corporation (Cerritos, CA) makes the S•22, S•23 and S•24 notebooks with a 100mhz to 233mhz MMX Pentium or AMD K6 Mobile 266/300mhz processor. The units have 16MB of EDO DRAM (expandable to 128MB), 512MB of Pipeline Burst Level 2 cache, a 2.16 gigabyte to 5.0 gigabyte hard drive, a 3½ inch floppy drive (Smart Bay II option), two Type II or one Type III PCMCIA slots, a serial, parallel, keyboard/mouse, video In/Out, audio and replicator ports, a 20X CD drive (swapable in Smart Bay II along with floppy drive, magneto optical drive, Zip drive options) and a lithium-ion battery. Trogon can be reached at 888-487-6466 or www.trogoncomputer.com.
Have you heard about Iomega Corporation’s (Roy, UT) new Clik drive? It’s a 40MB disk that will go into portable devices such as PDAs and digital cameras. The disks will cost about $10.00 each making storage inexpensive for these devices. Now if they can make it fit into a Type II PCMCIA card that goes into a camera or a notebook computer that would be a major accomplishment. An 8MB PCMCIA-ATA card costs anywhere from $99.00 to $249.00 depending upon where you shop. Iomega is also coming out with a new J azz drive that has a 2 gigabyte disk. The device is compatible with the current 1 gigabyte disks and will cost about $599.00. No word on the cost of the disks for this drive yet. The 1 gigabyte disks cost $125.00. Iomega can be contacted at 800-697-8833 or www.iomega.com.
On the same subject, Liberty, a company in Santa Clara, CA has the 30 Series, a 16.8 gigabyte drive that connects to the parallel and SCSI ports. The drive will fit into your “inside suit coat pocket” and includes an internal power supply. For pricing check with Liberty at 408-983-1127 or www.libertyinc.com.
Cross Pen Computing Group (Lincoln, RI) makes the iPen, a pad that replaces your mouse or trackball and allows you to write and draw on the screen. It consists of a cordless pen, a writing tablet and software. What a blessing for us lazy lefties. I’ve tr ied it at Micro Center where it sells for $149.00. Cross is also coming out with what I’ll call an electronic clipboard. You use a regular pad of paper on the clipboard and you write or draw (including signatures). What you’ve done is saved on the clipbo ard and transferred (by serial connection) to your computer. By the way, you use a special cordless pen to do the writing and drawing on the clipboard. No pricing is available at this time. Cross can be reached at 800-510-9660 or www.cross-pcg.com.
Xenocom, Inc. (Fullerton, CA) has the OHP-6000X, a notebook computer designed for presentations. It has a 100MHz to 166MHz Pentium processor, upgradeable memory to 32MB of 72 pin DIMM or 64MB of 72 pin SIMM, a 64-bit memory bus, 256KB secondary burst mod e cache, 128KB flash ROM BIOS, a removable 2½ inch enhanced IDE hard drive (various increments), a removable 6X CD drive, 11.3 inch active matrix display that lies flat (on the surface of an overhead projector), a wireless remote control unit, a 16-bit a udio system with amplifier, two speakers and an internal microphone, SoundBlaster Pro compatible with jacks for stereo line input, microphone input, earphones, game/MIDI port subconnector and all of the standard ports including an infrared port. It has t wo Type II or one Type III PCMCIA slots, with the Type II slots stacked.
It will cost you about $5,000 to $6,000 to take your presentations on the road with this unit. Xenocom can be contacted at 888-446-4667 or www.xenocominc.com.
Chuck Horowitz is a HAL-PC member who can be reached at 281/486-6043, FAX 281/486-6053 at BrisAssoc@aol.com or chuckh@hal-pc.org.
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