Why the FlipStart will fail, or, Why history is important

I blame WinCE and Palm for

I blame WinCE and Palm for the failures of most of the modern devices. WinCE is clearly another under-powered, under-featured Microsoft product designed to give them a toe-hold for strong-arm tactics in a new market. It worked, and it's that way even with "Windows Mobile." I've developed for it -- the environment sucks, kernel to GUI. Palm just seems to be confused as to what the market wants, and has acquired good technology (e.g. BeOS) without any demonstration that they intend to use it or really understand what it is they bought.

Contrast the more modern devices to the 200LX of yesteryear. HP's 200LX was by far the most friendly, useful, and powerful (in terms of number of things I wanted done that it could do, not number of MIPS) computer I have ever owned. The PIM suite, for example, was built around a database engine that was also exposed, via a GUI, to users for their own purposes. Notably, though, unlike these 600MHz palmtops we see today, it almost never lagged processing user input -- at a whopping 1MHz. And it's 640K of RAM (and 1.4M of storage) went a lot further than the 128M of application RAM on the more modern devices -- I rarely recall having to close applications to free up memory to open more, nor did I ever worry that installing a program would take up too much space.

It was designed by engineers for engineers, sold well to the target market and a good number of others, and has a devoted fan base (including Manuel Blum of CS fame) even to this day. It was killed off when HP thought they were Dell and nix'd their calculator department, also responsible for other products with a devoted fan base.

Oh, and, the small keyboard was actually useful for extended periods of thumb-typing (and was much less cramped than the keyboards we see CrackBerry users trying to type on of late).

A qwerty keyboard that is

A qwerty keyboard that is too small to use as a normal typing keyboard is nearly useless. There is no sense in trying to hunt and peck on a qwerty keyboard. Now, if you lost the keyboard and made the thing voice activated and a touch sensitive screen, that's something else!

Two grand is too much for the thing. You should be able to build and sell it for 300 to be viable. Link it to a cell phone network with a FIXED $30.00 a month unlimited traffic fee, and you've got yourself a deal that will be snapped up faster than they can be made.

As far as the operating system is concerned, I personally feel an open source operating system would be a better product.

I would argue that the

I would argue that the devices HAVE learned from history with evolutionary design. Some things these machines do now that are different:

• Mobile broadband connectivity. The latest handtops today serve much more as communication devices. The 80's and 90's devices were not. This means all your same web goodies like webmail, google, even remote desktop if you need to do something on your desktop machine.
• Run the same apps as your desktop. With my palms and pocket PC's I always had specialized desktop apps I wanted to run, but couldn't until now.
• Ink capabilities and handwriting recognition that actually works.
• No kludgy file conversion or syncing.
• Usability innovations like sliding/twisting screens, zoom in/out, capacitive scrollers, and a variety of new keyboards and mouse input devices.

We'll see... I think I'm

We'll see... I think I'm right, or I wouldn't have wrote it. :) But even if it turns out that I'm wrong, I will still stand by the final statement: it's vital not just to learn our industry's history, but to learn FROM that history.

History, however, is

History, however, is history. Now the facts are different, with a larger percentage of the critically useful functionality of larger devices becoming available in smaller devices that enable new applications...or at least the same old applications in new settings with the salient removal of much of the burden of transport. We also have an emerging broadband wireless infrastructure that is primarily limited at present by price.

That sums to nearly an entirely new world, not one of woefully underpowered adjunct devices, but one of actual portable computing, limited (almost) only by the minimum size of a useful touchtype keyboard and the reduced utility of a smaller display. The OSes can be readily adapted to smaller screens (7-11" range, at least) if the software houses are not stupid.

Below 7" or so of display, more rethinking is required, but more portability, even pocketability, can be obtained. The OSes would need to further adapt, but there's some chance this category of device without touchtype keyboards and with tiny screens will prove useful to a significant group at some price, eventually...at least in countries that use ideographic character sets.

Personally, I think mass usage below a certain size of device (due to limits on display and keyboard size) starts to call for a headmounted display and a one-hand handheld touchtype keyboard...the "wearable" computing model. But the headmounted displays for this don't seem to be quite ready yet.

There is, however, a large and waiting market for fully-functional computers with solid broadband wireless at the right price that are sized to be optimally shrunken around a minimum-sized touchtype keyboard. The screens need to be high resolution and the operating system display scaling needs to function properly, but if that part is handled, a lot can get done with a smallish screen and keyboard, to great portability advantage...and when you get to a desk, dock it to some big monitors and a full keyboard if you want. UWB should do even do away with the wiring pretty soon, while reducing the size of the portable computer by eliminating ports.

A lot depends on user

A lot depends on user preferences. If you want something that will fit in a normal-sized pocket, there's the OQO and the UX. Both have pretty respectable specs too. If you prefer clamshell design and/or a larger keyboard, there's the Flipstart - probably too big for most pockets, but still small enough to fit in a briefcase or purse or cargo pants pocket. Next out is the HTC Shift, which they say will be about the size of a couple of DVD cases stacked. A bit larger footprint than the Flipstart, but specs may be better, and price MIGHT be closer to what a lot of us are hoping for.

Ultimately, if you don't get the benefit, then you're not part of the market. But a growing number of us are not satisfied with smart phones and want this kind of portability. Past efforts were just ahead of the demand, IMO.

Anon -- I fully advocate

Anon -- I fully advocate smartphones and I carry a Treo 700p. It's the "in-between" size of which I'm skeptical. Too big to toss in your pocket, too small to be a real laptop replacement, too resource-hungry for the provided computing power. History isn't wrong.

the burgeoning smartphone

the burgeoning smartphone market has demonstrated real customer demand for a computer-like experience in a smaller form factor. Your pessimism may be justified from a PC-centric view, but look at what is happening around the rest of the world on the mobile phone. The solution may come from the bottom up, not the top down.

I'll grant you this is a

I'll grant you this is a niche market - for now. But it wasn't all that awfully long ago that people said the same about the PC, that it would only be useful for a very small percentage of consumers. These days, as our culture increasingly relies on computers and Internet, being either tied to a desk, or anchored down by a 5-lb weight and a notebook bag you have to keep an eye on everywhere you go becomes increasingly unappealing to a good many mobile professionals, gamers, and serious computer afficionados. The idea of being able to carry your PC around in your pocket or purse, at your beck and call anytime anywhere, appeals to more and more. As more and more companies crack down on personal use of their PC's, employees who use the Internet for shopping, staying in touch with friends and family, and personal business, such as researching contractors, staying in touch with doctors and dentists and their kids schools, etc., will find the idea of a readily available, fully functional PC more and more appealing. All that needs to happen is that the prices need to come down to a more reachable level for most people.

Evan, until now, none of the

Evan, until now, none of the devices mentioned by you were capable of doing what you do in your Desktop, without having to go through file conversion, etc. This is the main difference between what we have now and what we had then. Now we have a little machine capable enough to run the same OS you are using in your desktop and run the same programs you are using in your desktop. This is what is new in History.