On December 22, 2006, I became the proud owner of a Poqet PC Plus. That day I ordered one of the Poqet PC Pluses in stock at a company called California Digital in Gardena, California, near Los Angeles. Their service was good, but somewhat mediocre. There have been some reports of very poor service, but I found the service okay overall. So far I have downloaded WordStar, VisiCalc (!), Turbo Pascal 3.0, and VDE 1.73 for my PC Plus now in the mail. I was a little worried over the rechargeable NiCd batteries, but they're AAs so I'm good.
To refresh your memory, a Poqet PC Plus is a 16 MHz IBM XT-compatible running MS-DOS 5.0 and having 2 PCMCIA slots (Types I and II). Its processor is an 8086/80186-compatible NEC V30. It also has a display backlight and a non-reflective passive-matrix LCD display. That display, diagonally, measures 7.25". I will add more specs later on. Anyway, for the CA Digital service and my selection of the PC Plus.
After having tried and failed to use a ZEOS laptop and a Palm III as an effective small PC companion and device for writing and programming, I really needed something new to serve this purpose. I hated Grafitti on the Palm and still do, and the battery for the ZEOS cost $100, so I thought it would be better just to get a new computer. I started by considering several small machines that could serve my purposes. I first considered WinCE machines and Psion palmtops. At first I was attracted by low prices and high availability, but later I found out why some, the WinCE machines at least, were so cheap. WinCE, apparently, is extremely inefficient (what Win isn't?) and there is very little software for it!!! I also thought of subnotebooks, but they were overpriced and had too many bells and whistles. I also had bad experiences with my ZEOS, which was one. Then I learned of DOS Palmtops. These mainly used AAs and, best of all, ran DOS! Perfect. However, the HPLX series were too small, and the Poqet Classic too rare. I finally found a machine called the Poqet PC Plus at California Digital, a Los Angeles mail-order company. They had and still have them in stock for $159 with special deals for buying other stuff with one. However, that also eliminated the possibility of running a laptop-like machine on AA batteries.
After doing some reading on various mailing lists, I decided on the PC Plus as it was the best sized, least fancy, and most convenient device. Steep in price, but perfect for my purposes. I then proceeded to send some emails to the company. To my first surprise, they were promptly answered by the owner of the company, Terry Reiter. Knowing that he sold these things in very limited quantities, I had no idea that CA Digital still carried these devices. But, for the moment, the company did. After doing a little more reasding, I found that his company had acquired their Poqets from a company called RJ Reynolds that had their salespeople use the PC Pluses. So that's where they all came from. Terry answered all of my questions, and I must say that he did not get impatient with all of my questions (Does it work? Is its battery good? Do you have any discounts on it? Has it been tossed around in the Kalahari? Well, I did not ask that. :) ) He was very polite, quick in response, and helpful in answering my Poqet questions. However, still, living about a thousand miles from him, I still did not totally get all my questions answered. He said that the Plus had a 9-pin regular serial connector, but everybody else said it was a very weird 26-pin connector (It turns out that the Poqet PC Pluses from CA Digital have an odd housing with this type of connector. See below). But he was helpful overall. He told me about how he had re-celled the batteries (I will check this soon) and also about the quality and price.
Overall, I would recommend several things before purchasing a Poqet PC Plus from CA Digital. First, do as much reading as you can about the Poqet to make sure that you are getting what you pay for. I was able to confirm the normal serial port, the backlighting on the Poqet, the quality, and the lack of much documentation from other sources. Second, do not use the phone number listed on the web site. Just email Terry your number. Third, caveat emptor.
As of January 12, 2007, I still have not received my Poqet! I do not know what is up. I still will continue to wait for it to arrive. I do not know what is going on.
UPDATE!! As of January 22, 2007, I have my Poqet! I have been using it a little bit now and have gotten used to DOS. The Poqet PC Plus is great! I am looking forward to installing some stuff on the machine for programming and writing. I love the keyboard despite its tiny size.
I plan to have more information on it once I start using it :) I will have photos on this page. For now, I suggest that you read my computing page or go to the following links for now. Also, for information on my new Poqet PC mailing list, which I will probably terminate now that I have successfully subscribed to Sven Utcke's Poqet PC List at http://informatik.uni-hamburg.de, I believe. Here are some links:
California Digital - that place where I got my Poqet
Offers Poqets at steep prices, but with special discounts for other stuff.
An article which I added much PC Plus info to. Good reference on the Poqets. Other links.
Al's Review of Fujitsu's Poqet PC Plus
A very good but old PC Plus review. I have a few questions about the author, though.
A Poqet wiki I have created as a Poqet resource.
(to be continued)