I love this "consumer device crammed into a PC card" idea. I remember that my dad had an early digital camera that was on a PCMCIA card. Super cool. I'll bet there's more PC-card-shaped oddware out there that I've never heard about.
JUNK. They're all junk. It's form over function at its worst. You simply cannot get a good camera into the PCMCIA form factor and this was especially true back then. Putting a PDA, even one of limited abilities is also a very dumb idea.
Dude! I still have a 2MB Xircom branded REX 6000 that’s been running for 22 years & still working. Fun fact, the HP Jornada 680 & 7xx handheld PC’s had TrueSync inbuilt from the factory so you could just plug your REX in & go. Given the size of the Handheld PC having a little data viewer with it actually made sense. @This Does Not Compute A quick warning for anyone looking to buy a REX 6000, there was a 512K model that could be firmware flashed to report itself as 2MB, so caveat emptor.
I also had a Rex 6000. I also had a dock for it. At the beginning you could sync it up to a news service very day (kind of like Apple News) and download the daily news to the device, and read it on the train ride to work. Shortly they killed the news service and support for the device itself.
I was using REX/DataSlim for a year or so as a companion to Toshiba’s palmtop PC Libretto. Sync was so smooth and the Starfish scheduler wasn’t bad at all for the standard of the period. I eventually moved to Palm, then, Sony’s palm clone Clie for more convenience, but the minimalistic concept of REX is worth revisiting. Cheers from 🇯🇵
Motorola actually gave the basic device and the Starfish software one last shot for their StarTac clip-on organizer in 1999. It lost the PCMCIA card form factor, but was essentially identical in terms of functionality. Serial cable was included, and it had limited data entry/editing capabilities. I had one - it's party trick was being able to select a contact while the organizer was attached to the StarTac, and dial the phone! This was just mind-blowing back in 1999.
I used to have a similar Rolodex in middle school, but not the REX card, and I also had a Franklin PDA in high school. Those things were popular for teenagers before our schools allowed cell phones.
Hey, just want you to know that I LOVE this channel. The content is so good, well made. Every video is a ticket to a time travel. Please don't stop making these videos.
They had whitelabel versions of this. My dad got one sent to him as a sample, branded for his business. He couldn't figure it out so he gave it to me and I used it heavily for about 2 months. Then forgot about it until today.
I remember these! I think I even owned one. Your channel is one of my favorites because you bring up and restore these old products I remember so fondly.
I know that Starfish name was familiar to me, it was their 1999 Motorola StarTAC Clip-on organizer that bore similarity on it, it was an attempt at Motorola to made their StarTAC a quasi PDA-Phone contraption, wild that thing got even smaller predecessor.
Great video! I remember looking at one of these on a trip to the USA in the late 90's. At the time I had a Psion 5 Organiser but decamped in 2001 to the Handspring Visor which was a better version of the Palm Pilot whilst still running Palm OS.
oh, I ended up with one of these accidentally. I purchased a HP Jornada 680e and it had a REX 5000 in the pcmcia slot. was a great way to take the contacts and notes from the Jornada without taking a whole bulky PDA. I miss the whole palmtop pc era. The 680e had a built in modem and I'd use that to get internet access at my workplace which didn't have internet connected to the desktop PC's.
Sometimes I wish that smartphones didn't take over for every type of consumer device because a new version of this would be pretty cool I think. Like if apple still made iPods and they made a mini iPod touch you could load up with music and games and have an actual headphone jack too lol.
I went through a few of those back in the day, very useful as long as (a) the battery didn't die and (b) you ever put your jacket in an airplane overhead locker as the screen didn't survive when some cluless lump hammered your jacket with their bag. Oh, and truesync often didn't recognise it without a restart or two.
A killer app would have been to integrate a tone generator for phones so you could carry that device in your wallet and if you need to call somebody then you select the number, hold the device near a phone head set, and press a button which would then auto dial your number for you.. Imagine if they combined this technology with beepers... You could then save a number to call later.
As soon as I saw the PCMCIA connector I slapped my forehead. "You didn't. Why? How?". It's such a stupidly good idea that I kinda resent it. I miss how creative tech used to be haha
I had one of these things back in the day!! Of course I got it on clearance at Staples when it was way past the point of it being relevant. But for someone who NEEDS some sort of organization and is on the go this was a great tool.
@This Does Not Compute - When using the REX on Windows XP, and by extension Vista/7, you will need to also download a Windows 95/98/ME compatibility kit from the list of Updates. The Update was written for XP, but up to 7 could use it too. It is not part of the Update you downloaded; it's a separate update that you have to search for and was part of a pack of plug-in updates for C and .NET to give better legacy support. P.S. I had two of these back in the day, both the 5000 model. One was for family and friends' contact info and important dates like birthdays, anniversaries, etc. The other was for jobs, family lawyers, emergency contacts, etc. My grandfather got them for me because my memory is awful outside of select things, and it was before Cellphones were widely a thing. So it was a way to help me organize my life better. I only stopped using them once I got my first Smartphone back in 2014. They are really useful pieces of kit.
As soon as I saw the video thumbnail it reminded me I had one of these back in the late nineties. I used it quite some time but soon after that I bought my first PDA with Windows Mobile...
I used to have several of these Rolodex/Franklin/Xircom card PDAs. I still think they were the coolest things. I also had the Oregon Scientific Echo PDA, an inferior competitor. Back in the day, every junior executive wanted to be seen pulling it out of his shirt pocket.
0:45 I had a Casio calculator that was about the same siaze and so slim i loved it! It also had a leather pouch. I would also love to see a show on Japanese quartz watch tech from Casio, Citizen and Sony. Cheers
You know, it's interesting to think that the PDA market kinda died about the same time E-ink was getting popular. I'm sure there are more then enough overlaps of these concepts if you dig deep enough but what if this PCMCIA card had E-ink and could be a personal name tag/card to bring more interesting ideas while lasting MUCH longer on coin cells (Perhaps more than a year?) At least that hyperthetical product would fit neatly within my ThinkPad X220's card slot, but it's sadly only a dream.
Here's a few more bits of trivia: Starfish software was the company Philip Kahn started after he left Borland. Borland created the Sidekick organizer software that followed on to the REX. Starfish was located in an old Borland building on Green Hills Rd after Borland moved into their massive complex up the road. I'm assuming that Kahn was able to procure the rights to the Sidekick program when he left Borland, hence why it continued development at Starfish.
I remember these. They were also Type 1 or 2 PCMCIA cards so they could be inserted within a laptop or PDA with the right kind of connector. Then used to transfer files and update itself in a nifty sync method. I had other types of PDAs from Rolodex. I think at the time they were called data banks or digital organizers.
It reminds me of my iPAQ days. That was the PDA that fit my needs and I used the crap out of several iterations all the way up to Windows 7, which required some struggling to get sync to work. (My most used feature: Microsoft Outlook Tasks for notes taken in the field, then synced to Outlook when I got back to my laptop. Killer accessory: Slip on barcode reader! No more typing system serial numbers, MAC addresses, tracking numbers, etc.!) It got to the point where I was scouring eBay for iPAQs to keep myself loaded with spares. They were always in mint condition compared to mine. With my old cell phone holster and my iPAQ holster, I looked like a geeky Batman! Finally, a Bluetooth barcode scanner allowed me to start using my phone and retire my series of iPAQ's. (My "Daily driver" and at least one spare synced, charged, and ready to go just in case.) I worked in IT, and only one of my coworkers used an iPAQ like I did. Who the heck wants to still scribble notes in a paper notebook?!!
I have the next version of this pda. Called PDA 293. It is the same size, but there is already a virtual keyboard for adding entries directly on it. But he lost a convenient psi connector and switched to a proprietary one with a docking station.
I had zero use for my Handspring Visor...and there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of games worth playing. Even still...I absolutely loved that little thing to death!
I had a Timex clone of the REX. I know it had a small clamshell keyboard that you plugged in to enter data, and I believe it used a 3.5mm jack to connect over serial to a computer.
This is actually really cool. The mere fact they could get everything, including a relatively large screen, into a PC Card is amazing. It's the kind of thing that makes me think for half a second, "I'd love to have one of those today." Then I remember that smartphones do literally everything the REX could do, which I guess kind of drives home why it failed. The form factor and light weight are awesome, but even back then people were willing to accept the larger size and weight of a device like a traditional PDA that did significantly more. Decades later, we're still fine putting a roughly PDA-sized lump of glass and metal in our pockets, and while occasionally the promise of something lighter and smaller is intriguing, it's just not enough of a difference to justify the inevitable significant loss of functionality and usability.
The CompUSA I worked at had a dozen of them when they clearanced them out for $4.88 each. I wanted to love it but ultimately the Palm was what I wanted.
Nice wayback memory - I remember thinking the Rex was pretty neat due its size when it came out, but I was already a hardcore Palm OS user by that time and didn't have the money to pick one up too (in high school).
1:29 - wow there's quite a bit for me to digest here... I'm assuming Franklin made this thing as it reminds me of a couple Franklin PIMs I had as a kid... but what also caught my eye was that 609 area code as I grew up in south NJ with the same area code (I believe it's 856 now), and I'm realizing how interesting it was that I was a fan of their products and they were based right in my neck of the woods the whole time. Funny side story, I was the only kid with anything like this, and it turned out accidentally to be a great way to get the girls' phone numbers whenever you'd hand it over to them to mess around with, not much else you could do with it 😂😂
Yep I've got one of these. Too bad it's not a REX 6000 which are pretty rare. Sadly this video will be increasing their prices dramatically and I'm unlikely to own one now.
I have some strong memories, maybe false memories, of having one of these and using it on my grandparents laptop when I had it, and removing the card and carrying it around with me like I was some executive bad ass. But this looks, sounds really familiar, and the second you said the keys on it were hard to press I realized that yes, I did use this.
Hey Colin - love your channel. I’m a bit upset I just left Minneapolis for the UK - it would have been cool to grab a pint and check out Free Geek. Out of curiosity, where do you get your parts?
Apparently a lot of PCs had PCMCIA slots back in the 90s too. I commented on this video card that CathodeRayDude did a review on about a video camera that could only sync via PCMCIA slot about how it's weird they'd do that and he informed me about aftermarket PCMCIA slots that slid into a 3 1/4 or 5 inch drive bay
I used to sell these back in the day, they were cool devices but pretty expensive (around 300 euros adjusted for inflation) for what they were able to do and didnt sell very well.
I had the REX 6000 for a year back in 2001. It was cool, but really too limited as compared to a Palm or similar device. I do remember it had a really sharp screen for its time at roughly 130 PPI.
There were so many cool PCMCIA devices, your typical affairs modems network cards drive adapters but cool shit like this also existed. Cameras even a mouse that could fit inside. Flash media readers, flash media itself, hard drives. All kinds of cool stuff. Im imagining like a binder full of cards that all do different stuff to go with an ultra portable pc. Select whatever you would need for whatever outing you were doing. Probably making the retro enthusiast collector in me squee a lot more than it would have been practical. I have a PCMCIA card reader that plugs into PCI. Works great, but i also have an ISA card that does the same thing. And i have a wifi card for it. Meaning i can get wifi on ISA. Insanity!
Very cool form factor - for its day. Imagine, a flat, slim, electronic device you could fit in your pocket that held information and stuff for you - later models even with a touchscreen! If only that had caught on....
Funny to think in 2007/2008 when the iPhone was released that started the downfall of PDAs and these days, your phone is your PDA, entertainment device, camera, etc.
It’s funny that you had to go back to Windows 98 to get it to sync. Who knows, maybe if they cut prices and had an advertising campaign that said “we’re like Palm Pilot, only smaller and cheaper….” Oh well, that’s progress for ya Great video
A palm pilot was a pretty geeky and esoteric device. I would have imagined there were more people not interested in carrying or operating a pocket pc who would have opted for something more "sophisticated" like this.
I would've loved something like this, tho not being able to add an appointment with just the device is proooobably why you wouldn't really want one of these.
I love this "consumer device crammed into a PC card" idea. I remember that my dad had an early digital camera that was on a PCMCIA card. Super cool. I'll bet there's more PC-card-shaped oddware out there that I've never heard about.
Ooh, I bet it's the same one Cathode Ray Dude made a video about! I agree this sort of thing is really fun. It's quite odd but seems really neat.
JUNK. They're all junk. It's form over function at its worst. You simply cannot get a good camera into the PCMCIA form factor and this was especially true back then. Putting a PDA, even one of limited abilities is also a very dumb idea.
The camera in question is likely Nikon CoolPix 100 and it's obviously not contained within a PCMCIA card
how did you make this comment three days before video release tho
@@alexgravitos Patreon.
Dude! I still have a 2MB Xircom branded REX 6000 that’s been running for 22 years & still working. Fun fact, the HP Jornada 680 & 7xx handheld PC’s had TrueSync inbuilt from the factory so you could just plug your REX in & go. Given the size of the Handheld PC having a little data viewer with it actually made sense. @This Does Not Compute
A quick warning for anyone looking to buy a REX 6000, there was a 512K model that could be firmware flashed to report itself as 2MB, so caveat emptor.
I also had a Rex 6000. I also had a dock for it. At the beginning you could sync it up to a news service very day (kind of like Apple News) and download the daily news to the device, and read it on the train ride to work. Shortly they killed the news service and support for the device itself.
I was using REX/DataSlim for a year or so as a companion to Toshiba’s palmtop PC Libretto. Sync was so smooth and the Starfish scheduler wasn’t bad at all for the standard of the period. I eventually moved to Palm, then, Sony’s palm clone Clie for more convenience, but the minimalistic concept of REX is worth revisiting. Cheers from 🇯🇵
This makes me genuinely sad because this is flat out a great design and I know the design team worked hard on this thinking they really had something.
+1
was that "flat out" pun intended?
@@04dram04 prob not
This would be awesome to use in an Apple Newton or an HP 200LX if the software existed, because who wouldn't want a PDA in their PDA.
yo dawg
Motorola actually gave the basic device and the Starfish software one last shot for their StarTac clip-on organizer in 1999. It lost the PCMCIA card form factor, but was essentially identical in terms of functionality. Serial cable was included, and it had limited data entry/editing capabilities. I had one - it's party trick was being able to select a contact while the organizer was attached to the StarTac, and dial the phone! This was just mind-blowing back in 1999.
I used to have a similar Rolodex in middle school, but not the REX card, and I also had a Franklin PDA in high school. Those things were popular for teenagers before our schools allowed cell phones.
Hey, just want you to know that I LOVE this channel. The content is so good, well made. Every video is a ticket to a time travel. Please don't stop making these videos.
Yes well said! I also absolutely love it!
They had whitelabel versions of this. My dad got one sent to him as a sample, branded for his business. He couldn't figure it out so he gave it to me and I used it heavily for about 2 months. Then forgot about it until today.
When was this
I remember these! I think I even owned one. Your channel is one of my favorites because you bring up and restore these old products I remember so fondly.
just imagine a modern version of this, replacing LCD with e-ink, PCMCIA with NFC and adding more features. I would buy it on the spot.
Put it on the back of a phone case and a lot would. It's easier to access and a good backup for when the phone's battery is low or flat.
Me too
@@MissFoxification if it is a phone case with a battery I could see many buy one.
if u make it thicker than u could add an esp 32 and have wifi and bt on the spot, or leave it thin and put a rpi pico into it for the power users lmao
Except the very phone you put it on has the same functionality but better.
The concept and form factor of this device is amazing. If you ever get your hands on the newer model I’d love to see how it works.
Plug and play into the PC card slot got me. That is amazing!
I remember seeing these in the "Innovations" catalogue in the UK.
Classic stuff.
I know that Starfish name was familiar to me, it was their 1999 Motorola StarTAC Clip-on organizer that bore similarity on it, it was an attempt at Motorola to made their StarTAC a quasi PDA-Phone contraption, wild that thing got even smaller predecessor.
Wow, this video makes me lust for that product! This must be what it feels like to be a middle-manager in 1997.
I still have that REX. And it was nicely synchronizing with Lotus Notes running on an IBM ThinkPad.
I could see that being a great little companion piece for lotus notes at the time. Have all your meeting dialins and contacts on a handy little card.
I have come to love your channel this year. Thanks for the video!
Great video! I remember looking at one of these on a trip to the USA in the late 90's. At the time I had a Psion 5 Organiser but decamped in 2001 to the Handspring Visor which was a better version of the Palm Pilot whilst still running Palm OS.
That design is absolutely brilliant. Back when that was new I bet it felt like you were in the future popping that rex into the pcmcia slot!
I completely forgot I used to have one of these until this video. What a blast from the past!
Seeing old tech like this, gets me excited again, for my current tech
Holy cow, I love this little thing! It's incredibly cleverly designed!
oh, I ended up with one of these accidentally. I purchased a HP Jornada 680e and it had a REX 5000 in the pcmcia slot. was a great way to take the contacts and notes from the Jornada without taking a whole bulky PDA. I miss the whole palmtop pc era. The 680e had a built in modem and I'd use that to get internet access at my workplace which didn't have internet connected to the desktop PC's.
Sometimes I wish that smartphones didn't take over for every type of consumer device because a new version of this would be pretty cool I think. Like if apple still made iPods and they made a mini iPod touch you could load up with music and games and have an actual headphone jack too lol.
I'd love to see something like that come back in some capacity. I imagine you could do this even thinner with an eink display and mircosd storage.
A storage device with a display
I went through a few of those back in the day, very useful as long as (a) the battery didn't die and (b) you ever put your jacket in an airplane overhead locker as the screen didn't survive when some cluless lump hammered your jacket with their bag. Oh, and truesync often didn't recognise it without a restart or two.
Agreed, the display was fragile, mine cracked after a few weeks, and I didn't consider it worth replacing that frequently.
my screen was destroyed when sitting in an airline seat with it in my pocket - think the belt's metal fitting must have broken it. Fragile indeed :(
A killer app would have been to integrate a tone generator for phones so you could carry that device in your wallet and if you need to call somebody then you select the number, hold the device near a phone head set, and press a button which would then auto dial your number for you.. Imagine if they combined this technology with beepers... You could then save a number to call later.
As soon as I saw the PCMCIA connector I slapped my forehead. "You didn't. Why? How?". It's such a stupidly good idea that I kinda resent it. I miss how creative tech used to be haha
I had one of these things back in the day!! Of course I got it on clearance at Staples when it was way past the point of it being relevant. But for someone who NEEDS some sort of organization and is on the go this was a great tool.
@This Does Not Compute - When using the REX on Windows XP, and by extension Vista/7, you will need to also download a Windows 95/98/ME compatibility kit from the list of Updates. The Update was written for XP, but up to 7 could use it too. It is not part of the Update you downloaded; it's a separate update that you have to search for and was part of a pack of plug-in updates for C and .NET to give better legacy support.
P.S. I had two of these back in the day, both the 5000 model. One was for family and friends' contact info and important dates like birthdays, anniversaries, etc. The other was for jobs, family lawyers, emergency contacts, etc. My grandfather got them for me because my memory is awful outside of select things, and it was before Cellphones were widely a thing. So it was a way to help me organize my life better. I only stopped using them once I got my first Smartphone back in 2014. They are really useful pieces of kit.
As soon as I saw the video thumbnail it reminded me I had one of these back in the late nineties. I used it quite some time but soon after that I bought my first PDA with Windows Mobile...
Brings back fond memories of reading T3 magazine (where I drooled over tech but never actually owned any of it!)
ah a man of culture I see. I only had PCFORMAT where I lived..
and knowing PCFORMAT magazine it wasn't only the tech that made us drool. 😂
T3 was a great mag.
love dot matrix lcd technology from 80, and 90 and all those organizers :) cool video :)
I really enjoyed learning about this nifty device.
I used to have several of these Rolodex/Franklin/Xircom card PDAs. I still think they were the coolest things. I also had the Oregon Scientific Echo PDA, an inferior competitor. Back in the day, every junior executive wanted to be seen pulling it out of his shirt pocket.
This looks really interesting, a minimalistic functionality - just enough what was possible back in the day in such form factor.
What a neat little device. Thanks for sharing this 😊
0:45 I had a Casio calculator that was about the same siaze and so slim i loved it! It also had a leather pouch. I would also love to see a show on Japanese quartz watch tech from Casio, Citizen and Sony. Cheers
DUDE, I had one of these way back in the day!!! I loved it. BTW not too many people know what a PCMCIA port is LOL.
This takes me back. 1997/98. Travelling Asia for work with a Rex in my suit top pocket and a Thinkpad under my arm.
Great video & detail, thanks
This is so cool, thanks for sharing.
You know, it's interesting to think that the PDA market kinda died about the same time E-ink was getting popular. I'm sure there are more then enough overlaps of these concepts if you dig deep enough but what if this PCMCIA card had E-ink and could be a personal name tag/card to bring more interesting ideas while lasting MUCH longer on coin cells (Perhaps more than a year?)
At least that hyperthetical product would fit neatly within my ThinkPad X220's card slot, but it's sadly only a dream.
Well, the Expresscard54 in X220 has such a weird internal shape that the device could not be very usable.
Smallest PDA in the work is actually the Fossil Abacus, yes, a watch, ran Palm OS, touch screen, there were several iterations.
Here's a few more bits of trivia: Starfish software was the company Philip Kahn started after he left Borland. Borland created the Sidekick organizer software that followed on to the REX. Starfish was located in an old Borland building on Green Hills Rd after Borland moved into their massive complex up the road. I'm assuming that Kahn was able to procure the rights to the Sidekick program when he left Borland, hence why it continued development at Starfish.
I remember these. They were also Type 1 or 2 PCMCIA cards so they could be inserted within a laptop or PDA with the right kind of connector. Then used to transfer files and update itself in a nifty sync method. I had other types of PDAs from Rolodex. I think at the time they were called data banks or digital organizers.
It reminds me of my iPAQ days. That was the PDA that fit my needs and I used the crap out of several iterations all the way up to Windows 7, which required some struggling to get sync to work. (My most used feature: Microsoft Outlook Tasks for notes taken in the field, then synced to Outlook when I got back to my laptop. Killer accessory: Slip on barcode reader! No more typing system serial numbers, MAC addresses, tracking numbers, etc.!) It got to the point where I was scouring eBay for iPAQs to keep myself loaded with spares. They were always in mint condition compared to mine. With my old cell phone holster and my iPAQ holster, I looked like a geeky Batman! Finally, a Bluetooth barcode scanner allowed me to start using my phone and retire my series of iPAQ's. (My "Daily driver" and at least one spare synced, charged, and ready to go just in case.) I worked in IT, and only one of my coworkers used an iPAQ like I did. Who the heck wants to still scribble notes in a paper notebook?!!
A PDA that fits in a PC card slot, now that's clever.
Thanx for wonderfull piece of tech history
I have the next version of this pda. Called PDA 293. It is the same size, but there is already a virtual keyboard for adding entries directly on it. But he lost a convenient psi connector and switched to a proprietary one with a docking station.
This is a terrific product
That is fantastic! I love the idea
I had zero use for my Handspring Visor...and there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of games worth playing.
Even still...I absolutely loved that little thing to death!
I had a Timex clone of the REX. I know it had a small clamshell keyboard that you plugged in to enter data, and I believe it used a 3.5mm jack to connect over serial to a computer.
I had a Rex 6000! I remember being able to input data directly. I don’t remember really using it though and probably did not have it long.
Nice video Colin
This is actually really cool. The mere fact they could get everything, including a relatively large screen, into a PC Card is amazing. It's the kind of thing that makes me think for half a second, "I'd love to have one of those today."
Then I remember that smartphones do literally everything the REX could do, which I guess kind of drives home why it failed. The form factor and light weight are awesome, but even back then people were willing to accept the larger size and weight of a device like a traditional PDA that did significantly more.
Decades later, we're still fine putting a roughly PDA-sized lump of glass and metal in our pockets, and while occasionally the promise of something lighter and smaller is intriguing, it's just not enough of a difference to justify the inevitable significant loss of functionality and usability.
The CompUSA I worked at had a dozen of them when they clearanced them out for $4.88 each. I wanted to love it but ultimately the Palm was what I wanted.
Nice wayback memory - I remember thinking the Rex was pretty neat due its size when it came out, but I was already a hardcore Palm OS user by that time and didn't have the money to pick one up too (in high school).
i imagine if it had a keyboard accessory it probably would have sold better. Like keep the form factor but make a case that had it built in.
I know a guy who did real estate that had one of these back in the day. Cool little device. 👍
1:29 - wow there's quite a bit for me to digest here... I'm assuming Franklin made this thing as it reminds me of a couple Franklin PIMs I had as a kid... but what also caught my eye was that 609 area code as I grew up in south NJ with the same area code (I believe it's 856 now), and I'm realizing how interesting it was that I was a fan of their products and they were based right in my neck of the woods the whole time. Funny side story, I was the only kid with anything like this, and it turned out accidentally to be a great way to get the girls' phone numbers whenever you'd hand it over to them to mess around with, not much else you could do with it 😂😂
I've been wanting to get one of these for so long not been able to get one!!
Yep I've got one of these. Too bad it's not a REX 6000 which are pretty rare.
Sadly this video will be increasing their prices dramatically and I'm unlikely to own one now.
with e-ink displays PDAs like this REX could make a comeback, I would get one for sure!
I have some strong memories, maybe false memories, of having one of these and using it on my grandparents laptop when I had it, and removing the card and carrying it around with me like I was some executive bad ass. But this looks, sounds really familiar, and the second you said the keys on it were hard to press I realized that yes, I did use this.
I had this PDA too!
I remember having the DataSlim version. However, I just cannot recall any memory of using it. Perhaps I never did.
I have one of those! Still works perfectly and I have an old Dell D630 just so I can plug it into something!
Hey Colin - love your channel. I’m a bit upset I just left Minneapolis for the UK - it would have been cool to grab a pint and check out Free Geek.
Out of curiosity, where do you get your parts?
Apparently a lot of PCs had PCMCIA slots back in the 90s too. I commented on this video card that CathodeRayDude did a review on about a video camera that could only sync via PCMCIA slot about how it's weird they'd do that and he informed me about aftermarket PCMCIA slots that slid into a 3 1/4 or 5 inch drive bay
this brings back memories of the REX 6000 i had.
I used to sell these back in the day, they were cool devices but pretty expensive (around 300 euros adjusted for inflation) for what they were able to do and didnt sell very well.
Just started watching the video, heard the words trick up it's sleeve. I think it plugs into the PCMCIA slot for data transfer.
I wanted one of those! Thought its size was awesome! Though being a kid, I had no use for a pda.
Wow! That really is an amazing product. Wish it was marketed better.
Really feels like a product that needed like a $99 or so price point to really be attractive and make up for some of the shortcomings.
oh wow. I was just watching am old episode of computer chronicles that mentioned the rex!
Really cool little gadget.
This is actually a beautiful device. If the thing could be used as a phone I would buy one :)
oh the memories.. i used to have a clipON " this exact thing" on my startac phone..
I had the REX 6000 for a year back in 2001. It was cool, but really too limited as compared to a Palm or similar device. I do remember it had a really sharp screen for its time at roughly 130 PPI.
I remember these! From catalogs at least.
It’s beautiful!!!!
PDAs are still popular today. AKA Smart Phones. 🙂
Right? but I actually the term PDA better.
@@jackkraken3888 I do too.
There were so many cool PCMCIA devices, your typical affairs modems network cards drive adapters but cool shit like this also existed. Cameras even a mouse that could fit inside. Flash media readers, flash media itself, hard drives. All kinds of cool stuff.
Im imagining like a binder full of cards that all do different stuff to go with an ultra portable pc. Select whatever you would need for whatever outing you were doing. Probably making the retro enthusiast collector in me squee a lot more than it would have been practical.
I have a PCMCIA card reader that plugs into PCI. Works great, but i also have an ISA card that does the same thing. And i have a wifi card for it. Meaning i can get wifi on ISA. Insanity!
State of the art computer miniaturisation it fits in your pocket.
IIRC Xircom was a pretty popular pcmcia network cards for notebooks around 2000
Very cool form factor - for its day. Imagine, a flat, slim, electronic device you could fit in your pocket that held information and stuff for you - later models even with a touchscreen! If only that had caught on....
Funny to think in 2007/2008 when the iPhone was released that started the downfall of PDAs and these days, your phone is your PDA, entertainment device, camera, etc.
It’s funny that you had to go back to Windows 98 to get it to sync.
Who knows, maybe if they cut prices and had an advertising campaign that said “we’re like Palm Pilot, only smaller and cheaper….”
Oh well, that’s progress for ya
Great video
I have one in the box! Can't find a way to get it off because it's just so cool for the time era.
I don’t comment much but just want to say I love the content 🙂
I had one of these back in the day.
Sadly it's fragile: my display cracked within weeks of having it, and never replaced it.
this is a really neat item that i wouldn't mine having just to see if it can be hacked to used other software.
A palm pilot was a pretty geeky and esoteric device. I would have imagined there were more people not interested in carrying or operating a pocket pc who would have opted for something more "sophisticated" like this.
I would've loved something like this, tho not being able to add an appointment with just the device is proooobably why you wouldn't really want one of these.
Now this was a uniquely piece of tech , I would like to have
I had one and we got from Costco waayyy back, no idea if we still have it.