Atari Portfolio (the original DOS palmtop (?))

Atari Portfolio (the original DOS palmtop (?))

From: beale@jumpjibe.stanford.edu (John Beale)
Subject: Atari Portfolio information
Date: 24 Aug 1993 22:08:22 GMT
Runs DOS, uses 3 AA batteries, fits in a pocket (barely, and not all of it), has QWERTY keyboard, 8x40 supertwist LCD, probably the cheapest DOS portable available today. Comes with 128k RAM onboard, older models had 64k I think? Plug-in cards (proprietary interface, before PCMCIA standard) available at 64 and 128k of battery-backed SRAM, also a 540k FLASH card available. Serial and parallel interfaces are optional plug-ins. You can even get a range of hard disks although if you need mass storage, maybe you want a notebook. Text editor, diary, calculator, and spreadsheet are built into the 256k ROM, no built-in programming languages though.

Representative prices are (valid in 1993), I think, $250 retail new, and $100 swapmeet used. I got mine the latter way but had to pay the $79.95+tax retail for the serial interface, which is to my mind much bigger & heavier than it should be (about 1/4 the volume of the entire computer!)

Main FTP archive for Portfolio programs is: "atari.archive.umich.edu" but you probably won't be able to access. Better to use the mirror site: "wuarchive.wustl.edu" in "mirrors/archive.umich.edu/atari/Portfolio" which contains the subdirectories (as of 8/24/93):

May 28 08:01 0index
Mar 24 06:18 Applications
Jul 22 14:39 Archivers
Mar 24 06:15 Bootstrap
Mar 24 06:13 Demos
Mar 24 06:12 Games
Mar 24 06:09 Graphics
Mar 24 06:05 Languages
Aug 23 22:04 New
Mar 24 06:04 Sound
Jul 22 14:39 Support
Jul 22 14:39 Telecomm
Jul 22 14:39 Text
Jul 22 14:39 Utilities

You will of course note that none of this will do you any good unless you have the serial interface because you need to download them. Well, actually there are other options: you could use a modem connected directly to the Portfolio, transfer over a bidirectional parallel port, or get a PC Card Drive board for your PC that interfaces with the Portfolio's memory cards directly.

John Beale (beale@jumpjibe.stanford.edu)