HP 200LX and Related Palmtops

The OP says the machine was 'slow' -- however, getting the 2x clock upgrade, the machine's dhrystone performance is 1.5 VAX MIPS. That's not 'terrible'. It's like having a VAX-11/785 in your pocket that runs on 2 AA batteries. Mine runs the 16 bit MS C compiler, MASM, all manner of DOS programs (it's DOS 5.0), and the built-in apps are really quite good; 123 is particularly well done, and the calc app is, as expected, superb (has about half a dozen different 'modes' for Sci, Eng, TVM, etc). Auto-backed up every night, to an SRAM card in the PCMCIA slot. Full RS-232 Serial Port - this is one of the main ways one connected it to modems (although PCMCIA modem cards existed). And it had the very first IrDA port; 115,200 bps.

I have mine right underneath my computer monitor, and use it many times per day. It's just more useful with a keyboard than these screens with virtual keyboards for the engineering stuff I do. If it would have, say, bluetooth to the smart phone that I could use as an internet gateway, and if it had a backlight -- getting close to perfection as a portable productivity device.

I loved my 200LX. The SSD-like i/o performance, excellent keyboard, and the superior utility of text-based software made it a dream.

I rewrote in ‘C’ a FileMaker Pro configuration and quotation application my company used, and ran it on the 200LX. I could finish a quote for a customer in the time it took my colleagues to start up Filemaker. Two of them bought their own 200LXes, and we had an under-the-corporate-radar efficiency boost going on for about a year :-)

I just got myself an HP 200LX and it's pretty nostalgic. I've installed a bunch of DOS development tools on it. I have a 256MB compact flash card which is 10x larger than the harddrive in my first PC.

I have other palmtops and PDAs but the DOS based ones are special because they run the same software as full sized PCs. This is unlike Windows CE devices (I have HP 660LX) and Palm devices (I have an m105) that have to have software specifically written for them.

Even the Atari Portfolio -- which is only superficially PC compatible -- can at least be developed for using the same tools you'd use for a full-sized DOS PC.

I really like the palmtop form factor. When I was using a Palm Pilot the one thing I missed most was a built-in keyboard. Several years ago I was looking for a pocket-sized retro PC and ended up choosing the HP OmniGo 100[1] over the 200LX because of the convertible form factor (palmtop/PDA) and the handwriting recognition. It's possible to run DOS programs on the OmniGo but the square display means the whole screen can't be shown at once.

1: https://www.palmtoppaper.com/ptphtml/24/pt240017.htm

I was strangely obsessed with computing on the go for quite a long time. The HP 200LX was one of the steps on my journey. At the time, I was able to get this really cut-down real-mode version of Linux running on it. I was rather happy with being able to get 'vi' running and being able to program directly on it.

I didn't end up doing much actual programming on it while sitting under a tree on a breezy summer day though.

Later on I would experiment with running a full Linux userspace on Android phones that had decent keyboards (the original G1 / ADP1 and the Samsung Sidekick 4G).

I considered buying one of these at the time (as a happy HP 32S calculator user) but after playing with a colleague's one I decided not to bother. It was neat but there were so many compromises and inconveniences that it made the thing difficult at best so I figured I'd leave it a few years to see what happened. My colleague, after the initial amazed and shiny period wore off, just used it as a terminal for futzing with routers with in the end. This was a pretty expensive solution because we already had piles of old Wyse terminals floating around unused.

I remember drooling after I saw a HP Jornada 720. Too bad no one is making small devices like these anymore.

I was eyeing the Poqet PC in the late 90s when remaining stock was being sold off at a good price. I wanted to use it as a mobile dial-up terminal and to run Nethack (not sure if it actually had enough RAM and storage for that). Never got around picking one up in the end. Later on my pocket terminal dreams came true thanks to the Nokia 9300, Treo 650 and eventually Android devices using various ssh clients on each.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poqet_PC

https://www.bmason.com/PoqetPC/

I had a 200LX in college. I managed to get Linux set up on my main computer so that it would provide a login terminal on the serial port, where the LX was plugged in.

This meant my girlfriend could check her mail while I used the big computer, or vice-versa.

Later I got a PCMCIA modem so I could dial in and use my shell account when visiting my parents, even if their sole computer were tied up.

I went from an HP 95LX to a Palm m505. The 95LX could, in theory, do more, but I got more out of the m505 because of the tap interface (rather than typing commands) and the smaller slate form factor (more portable, less clumsy, not a clamshell). I still used the 95LX for certain specific tasks but the m505 was there when I needed it and didn't feel like a burden.

I loved my 200LX. One of the fun features is the built-in infrared port. I used the database app to keep a running log of barcode scanning errors at my retail job. At the end of the day, I’d take it over to one of the printers that had infrared, print out a copy and hand it over to the manager. Pretty nifty in the days before Bluetooth and ubiquitous WiFi.

Nokia collaborated with HP and produced a handheld phone into which one could slot in a 200Lx. That sandwich had most of the functionality the latter Communicator had ( which sadly never much innovated on it, imho due to the fun of Symbian development).

I really regret selling my netbooks. The form factor was just perfect.

An HP200LX connected over telnet to SDF.org can be extremely useful if you spawn Emacs there.

I love that the 200LX has a numpad, something missing from the compact PCs I have.