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.
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 had a series of HP devices around this time including an 11C, a pair of 48's, and a 200LX. The 200LX was the one that got the least use. It was would've been great if I had a need for custom DOS apps on the go, but as a general tool it was both too limited and too awkward.
(In an alternate world where calculators still made sense, it'd still have been interesting to see the 200LX form factor with hardware/software from the calculator division. They did at least get somewhat close to this with the financial calculator app.)
Yeah that. I'm on the mathematics side so I still have a calculator in hand all the time and use one many times a day. I have one of these https://hpcalcs.com/product/hp-15c-collectors-edition/ ... anything more complicated gets subcontracted out to Julia.
They have the HP Prime now. I have one but I barely use it. It's damn fast though!
Don't forget about Swiss Micros calculators if you haven't heard of them. I don't have any originals to compare to, but I'm happy with my collection of them.
I'm no expert, but to me "cyberdeck" is somewhere in the realm of DIY computer that breaks from the traditional form factor. Of course they still aim for practical - but the whole point of cyberdeck is to embrace the imaginative.
In short, I think of it like a technopunk cosplay for your computer.
--
but the barrier of entry is super high, so, not that many people end up making one - let alone refining the idea as needed to really polish it.
I had a 720 and loved it more than any other device I've ever had. It really changed my workflow and I used it daily for about ten years. I finally had to move away from it because connectivity and compatibility became too much of an issue.
These days, a 13" slim notebook with a good suspend mode is nearly as convenient as that 720, so I doubt I would be interested even if an updated version was available.
The 200LX had two big draws, the specialized keyboard and the ability to run desktop software, but the bigger keyboard on the 690/720 allowed touch typing, which was the biggest thing for me.
Key differences vs GPD Win are much higher reliability (HP 200LX is dependable and still working past its 32-year anniversary), instant-on, maintains a steady computing speed (GPD chokes to a crawl quickly when its CPU spins up) and great battery convenience (lasts a long time and changing double A's is easy vs needing to charge a few hours). Of course, the GPD runs full-on modern OS's though
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.
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 still have one. I do my calculus-beginner Math with Macsyma (it's almost the same as the current Maxima written with Common Lisp, the syntax it's the literal same and anyone who launched it under a Linux distro/BSD will be at home) under an emulated PDP-10 ITS (VT52 terminal, 100x32, simulated with XTerm) and I code under MacLisp which is incredibily featureful.
I plan to write a Gopher client either under MacLisp with a TCP library or Midas (PDP10 assembler). Why? Because it's wonderful and Gopher has lots of services: gopher://magical.fish has a translator, a newsfeed source, links to a Hacker News bridge, Reddit (read only, but you can grok the news and the comments), blogs, weather, and even some IF over Gopher, such as Spider and Web..
Yeah, that makes it interesting to me because it clearly has lot of HP calculator DNA in it. Indeed, I'd posit that it makes pretty decent calculator even if you ignore the PC stuff
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.