When PCs were hitting their stride, handheld versions were starting to make their appearances. The early versions were pretty limited in their performance, but they were functional, mobile, and not too bad.
A fellow on one of the retro forums reached out to me recently and asked if I’d be interested in a Zeos Pocket PC. At first I thought it was another Windows CE machine, and I was really avoiding those. But this turns out to be a very basic DOS based handheld, so I said “Sure, I’ll take it!”
The Zeos Pocket PC was made in 1992, around the time the HP 95LX and similar ‘clamshell’ computers were being manufactured.
Specifications
- Released: 1992
- Original price: $595 ($1,108 in 2020 dollars)
- CPU: NEC V30 (80C86) @ 4.77MHz / 7.15MHz
- Memory: 640k RAM
- Display: 80×25 LCD text, 640×200 graphics
- Batteries: Two AA
- MS-DOS 5.5
- 1.3lbs
Interesting Bits
The Zeos PC has a couple features on it that make it pretty interesting. The first is it has a parallel and a serial port on it. Unfortunately, they use a custom cable connector (which I happen to have), so connecting up to them can be a little challenging.
However, they also have dual PCMCIA slots, which means it’s easy to dock new cards into it (conveniently located under the case). The Zeos supports SRAM cards… these cards are Type 1 PCMCIA devices, which are pretty hard to find, and require a battery in the card to retain their storage. I have 1-2 that I use on my Newtons, so I’m looking forward to tinkering with them.
Another neat feature is it has a quite large and comfortable keyboard. That can be a win or lose – easy to type on, but it makes the entire unit quite bulky. Not something that would fit comfortably in a jacket pocket
The screen is not particularly easy to work with. It has no backlighting, so visibility requires just the right light setup (a direct light, but not one that reflects badly).
It is, however, extremely light and portable for a fully functional PC-DOS machine from 1991.
Conclusions
The Zeos Pocket PC is a cute representation of the state of DOS based computers in the early 90’s. Extremely limited funtionally in it’s basic state, but I’m going to see if I can get some simple applications on it. It comes with Works (an extremely simple software suite for notes and stuff), but it might be fun to get some more complex applications on it and get some connectivity going.
Great and relevant post, Dave!
I recently got one of these, but unfortunately did not come with the manual.
Been trying to find somewhere to download it, but so far no go….
Any chance of borrowing your manual so that I could make a copy of it and then return it to you?
I would of course, pay you for sending it to me and a fee for doing this. And would return it in same condition.
I’m in Santa Clara, CA, USA….don’t know where you’re at….hopefully, in USA too…..
You can email me directly, if you like.
Thanks for your consideration.
Mark
Nice review of a rare device. Sounds like a quite useable sub-notebook.
BTW, don’t sell MS Works V2 short! It can do a lot more than take a few notes! Back when I was a poor student, I used WORKS for my entire MBA program — assignments, reports, spreadsheet analysis. The word processor, spreadsheet, database, and comms software were tightly integrated, and had an excellent user interface. You could produce simple but attractive and clean documents with text, tables and embedded charts. It was very robust, and even supported a mouse (rare for DOS software). Yes, WORKS was indeed a step behind the leading software packages of the day, but it provided a ton of value at a low price. I even ran it on an HP 200LX palmtop!