Atari Portfolio - The $400 Palmtop PC from 1989 

The moment he said "you aren't going to play doom on it" I heard almost a dozen crazy programmers cry out in a loud voice "challenge accepted"

"You're not gonna run Doom on here...." Them's fightin words!

Actually, that Portfolio was used in my local hospital. The doctors were using it for writing down patient reports and then printing it with an old dot matrix printer. Fun fact. They used those little Atari machines till 2008 and then they upgraded to Windows Vista machines XD

*You're not gonna play doom on here* Somewhere someone in the DooM community: *Hold my beer*

I couldn’t figure out why this was so familiar, until you said “hacking ATM’s” and it hit me like a ton of bricks where I knew this from.

One small showcase for man, one giant leap for LGR’s T2 John Connor cosplay

"You're not gonna run Doom on here...." What fresh heresy is this?

You know the hardware is truly limited when there's no DOOM port for the platform.

The appearance and style of this thing has aged very well, I think. It doesn't look so dated as many of its peers

Shout out to LGR for his superb filming, editing, and writing. Each episode truly immortalizes the technology LGR presents. Such dedication to preservation deserves commendation.

It seems inevitable that “netbooks” will soon be old enough to be worth considering as an LGR topic. I have an early Samsung in a fetching blue color that I would be willing to donate.

0:39 I like how the OS is DIP and John Connor says "You calling moi a dipshit".

As a die-hard Atari Computer fan I was intrigued with this little machine. It was clearly not an Atari design but it did seem like it might be useful, especially as a supplemental machine for a PC user. I never cared for the IBM PC or its ilk, but they were all on DOS 3.3 at the time and DOS 2.11 felt like a deal breaker. Everyone was comparing its size to a VHS tape. We were Beta. But it did appreciate that it ran on AA batteries, my coin of the realm at the time. I was into low-level programming so I was wailing for an assembler. I was also waiting for the price to drop to $199 which felt more appropriate to me. Of course "PC compatibility" was promised much more than it was delivered an awful lot in those days. You're generally better off writing your own software to pass data to a real PC. I still think John Connor demonstrated the most practical use of this machine.

Who didn't want one of these things when they were in the JCPenney and Sears Christmas catalogues back in the day?

Unbelievably, my Dad had two of these! He had some great software for them, too. I've got a photo hanging up of me using one, taken in 1991. I seem to remember he had some games you could play across a cable, connecting the two machines. Do I remember battaleships? and Pong? Awesome days.

I totally get that technology moves forward but there is just such a charm around devices like this. I'd love to do some proper dedicated writing on one and just feel like I'm stepping back in time haha

I literally dreamed about owning one of these! Unfortunately I ended up with a Casio telememo databank, that didn't stop me from thinking I could hack into an ATM though.

This takes me back to college, one of the tutors there had one (two years before T2). I thought it looked cool, but I had a Gameboy instead as I wanted to play games on the move. He also had a Yamaha SY77 synth workstation, I was jealous as they were top notch and expensive. I have two SY77s now (I bought a broken one to fix and failed, bought another then got both working) but no Portfolio, I don't think they're that useful. I did have a Nokia 9110 communicator in 2001 and that was an AMD 486 running DOS with Geos as the frontend.

LGR videos are definitely one of the few that, no matter how long, could never be long enough. This video could be three and a half days long and I'd still be like aww damn it's not four days? Clints voice is next level soothing fr fr lol.

Compromising usability for portability Literally nothing has changed lol

Before even starting the video the T2 atm scene popped in my head.

I really wanted something like this... to play games in school! Nintendo understood me and released the Gameboy.

We had one of these on demo at the computer store I worked at back then. It was super impressive to anyone who handled it, but nobody could fathom doing anything useful with it. It was on display with the calculators and Sharp/Casio gimmicks.

If only DIP had been around long enough for the mini HDMI plug PCs, we might have been graced by the DipStick

This video contains easily one of the best Tommy Tutone references in the long history of LGR. Well done, sir.

The more I watch this channel, the more I like this channel, and I've been watching for yeaaars. Good show, old chap!

I had one of these at uni in 92/93, and used it to type up lecture notes. They were great devices in their day :)

I've always wanted one of these. Wishing I'd grabbed one on eBay in the early 2000s when they could be had for $40-$60 all day.

I am always subconsciously listening for alliteration in LGR videos. "Handy Handful of helpful software," is a good one.

I loved my PSION II when I first got it in 1987. The EPROM programs were just too cool. And those cards were the coolest in my KORG DDD-1 drum machine from 1988.

My father worked for Atari Mexico, and he still actually has one of those with all the accessories!

I've had a few of these over the years, the first back in 1991. Loved that little thing. Fun fact: The breakout portion of the PC Card Drive is a repurposed shell for the Atari XM301 300 baud direct-connect modem for the Atari 8-bit computers.

I gotta admit, I would have been pretty pissed to find out that this wasn't a fully compatible DOS system, even if that wasn't a realistic expectation back in 1989. The widescreen display alone probably would have made that impossible. Still a nifty device regardless.

In a time when tech can do so much, effortlessly, I still smile like I did as a young person in the late 80s and 90s, seeing these old devices do cool stuff.

That LCD contrast is *perfection*, its so sharp! As is your camera work! Pretty awesome little device, I wanted a palmtop so bad when I was little.

Disappointed I had to scroll 3 screens down to see a T2 reference. "Easy money!"

there's something so fun about this era's devices. the form factor, the simplicity. I'd love to revive the idea with an e-ink display, esp32 soc, and a slighlty nicer shell than dos

Okay, the price the branding, service, compatibility and translation of this device has such a high quality for a device from 1989. It's unreal

Marvellous! Ive been waiting for an atari portfolio to be showcased on lgr since the early days 😁 thankyou

Great video. Really cool to see more in depth review of the Portfolio; being a huge fan of Atari since I was a kid, this thing was always pretty intriguing.

Someone needs to do a profile on Guildford. It's a small, unassuming town that has been balls deep in tech for decades now.

I wanted one of these when I was a kid. Wanted is an understatement. I could not save up enough for it and it was out of reach for my parents too at that time in our lives. I see it now on eBay etc and it is so tempting, but it's just nostalgia now and good enough watching you review it. Thank you!

I bet it was a Dream Come True for some kids to have these in 1990

Man as a hardcore Atari guy I lusted after one of these so much!

Man, this makes me appreciate my GDP Win Max WAY more.

Despite the DOS compatibility issues, this was a surprisingly capable device by 1989 standards, and if anything it was slightly ahead of its time.

I love retro tech. I love this era of PCs and components. I loved it as a kid and I love it now at 37. I feel like I can smell this channel.

Thanks for another one L.G.R ! 👍 Born in 85’ and always a tech nut, but so much of this old stuff you bring out was too expensive for me as a child, just had my Sega, Nintendo, GB, GG. So I’ve always just had to wonder… but then I found your channel ! 🙌🙌👏👏👏👍 Thank You for finding so many awesome relics and showing us in such great detail.

Just an FYI, Guildford is pronounced without the "D". It's a fairly sensible pronunciation compared to some of our other place names, for example, Cholmondeley, it's pronounced Chum-lee.

This is so much cooler than I thought It could have been! "LOCK-ON TECHNOLOGY!"

Your videos always bring a smile to my face. 😁

Love these videos. Keep them coming!

"Oh Atari, you tried" just about sums up the last 40 years of Atari

The "Pofo"😂. It's OS really seems to limit it, but I can see this device being useful for light writing and note taking.

Thanks for the history research. That was interesting! I remember playing around with the Atari in the computer store I worked at back in the 80's. I think I remember the battery life kind of sucking, but we did have fun logging into BBS with it.

Thanks for sharing! Always love tech like this that was around when I was alive, but not aware of all the tech around me! I was about 5 when this came out.

So cool! I didn't know all those accessories existed. Amazing job of filming the LCD. Can you show us more of your 200LX? I got the OPL3LPT running on mine, and played a bit of Planet X3.

This was just one of those that I wanted when I saw it in a newprint ads

WoWWW!!! Love it! Have still got my DIP Pocket PC and last time I tried it was still working! I had the parallel and serial interfaces and something else which I can't quite remember at the moment - it's in my summer house so can't dig it out right now! Great channel by the way - came here from Techmoan video about cassette winders.

I have one of these laying around! It belonged to my grandfather. No idea what he used it for, he put it in storage well before I was born and my grandmother and parents don't have a clue about what the thing was used for. Going theory is that he used it for his book binding business somehow. I never got it work sadly. The most it ever did was put a garbled output on the display. Also remember it from Terminator 2 of course. Nice to finally see one in action outside of a movie. Very neat piece of hardware for the time.

I have one of these, really neat little device.

02:46 I like the way you talk about the old country. Just Birmingham not "Birmingham England" or "Birmingham UK". It makes me (native of that region) feel included 😄

And as always, excellent video!!!

A new video from LGR! The homebrew showcase at the end reminds me of the homebrew community of programs for TI calculators...

I grew up with this older tech, so its got a place in my heart, but I'm also really glad these LCD screens went the way of the Dodo lol

Honestly, I'm really into its screen. I used to have an electronic dictionary with a similar screen, and it was very readable and easy on the eyes in a way that smartphones aren't as much, IMO.

Man I wish you'd cover the Zaurus, I had so many memories as a kid messing with that thing!

wow, I was always curious about this. Great video.

16:23 I love this part that he was trapped on this computer for the love of god!

Almost bought one of these back in the day, with an Amiga compatible dock thing. Buuuuut even back then, it was very limited.

Excellent video. I did not know the equipment. It amazes me that so many expansions have come out like the serial and parallel ports, the additional RAM memory and the memory card reader for transferring files with a PC.

I purchased one of these devices so I could run my aviation flight planning programs on it I developed for the PC. I was taken in by the compatibility with the PC which was very disappointing. My next device to superceed the Portfolio was the NEC PC 8201. Thankings for making this video. It brought back great memories for me.

I never owned a Palmtop but I did own an Atari 800XL...my very first ever computer. The keyboard itself was the computer and you had to have a floppy drive to run anything. I used this thing to death...literally, I just kept using until the floppy died. My dad must have sent it in for repair 2 or 3 times before he gave up on it (and technology was advancing). I remember programs like "Koala Paint" where it would allow me to make printables for my bedroom door (dot-matrix style). And my dad must have gotten well over 100 games for me to play! Games like Kongo Bongo, Super Pac-Man, Gauntlet (not the Gauntlet you're thinking of), Air Support, Pit-Fall (1 and 2), Kids on Keys, Donkey Kong, Juno First, Miner 2049er, Apshai, the list goes on. I'll never forget that system and I play an emulated version to this day.

Oooo 80s handheld computer

such great memories. I loved that little guy, I still have mine tucked away in a closet. I also had the parallel port adapter and the technical reference manual which included schematics for example peripherals, assembly code examples for drivers and a list of the DOS interrupts and parameters. The expansion connector was actually connected to the CPU main bus, similar to the ISA bus.

I love this!!! So well done, as always! At 6:04 I had to rewind a few times, cuz something looked a bit off. Then I noticed that it looks like the cord has been swapped out with a "universal power supply" cord. It has the tell-tale reversible-polarity plug at the end, and then on my double take, I noticed the shrink tubing at the junction of the cord and the wall wart casing. Do I observe correctly, or do my eyes (and perceptions) deceive me?? Anyway, LOVE this coverage, so thorough and entertaining!

10:02 Her number was conveniently found on the bathroom wall.

You're not gonna play Do--- someone ports Doom to it.

I still have one of those old Star dot matrix printers in the shed. It used to work the last time I used it, there was a broken bit of plastic that kept the auto paper feed from working so you just had to guide each page in until the rollers grab them.

Love these man, so chill .

I know we've come a long way, but I've always had a soft spot for quirky retro tech like this. There's a certain level of satisfaction that comes from devices like this that you can't get from a smartphone. This thing was way before my time. I'm sure it would've been cool to use one of these back in the day.

At the 7:44 min. mark, it shows the date. Was this Y2K compliant? That's hilarious.

Oh the nostalgia is overwhelming. I wanted a Psion badly and a Sharp Wizard too back then. Fun video as always. I was at a hamfest (ham radio flea market) and mentioned LGR to a guy who had a Compaq 286 portable fired up and instantly had about six people saying they love LGR :-).

My Portfolio is the only piece of computer equipment from the era I never sold or gave away. I still have it, a card, the serial and parallel adapters, and the memory expansion in safe keeping, and pop some batteries in and verify its still working every year or so. Believe it or not, I took lecture notes on it in my first year of University back in the early 90s. I even got some piece of scientific equipment that had a serial interface and which would output data to import into the Portfolio’s spreadsheet for analysis at one point. TBH, I always wondered about chaining the memory interfaces - I never got to try that (only owning one), so it was good to see it 30 years later. The only note I’d add to your otherwise excellent review is that once you had the memory expander installed, you couldn’t unplug it without resetting the Portfolio (losing anything in the memory-partitioned storage), so it could get unwieldy to use. You had to be careful carrying it around that way in a bag, as the clips didn’t handle pressure from either side very well, and could partially disconnect- causing you to lose everything in volatile storage.

YES...LGR is BACK! Good thing Apple had their biggest launch in decades, or I would never have made it though that second week 😉

9:58 The later Psions had this ability too. To my (slight) shame, I remember there was a "free" phone installed at my university without a keypad, it had pre-programmed buttons to call a few local places instead (a taxi, pizza place, that kind of thing). Thanks to my Psion, I had the ability to call other numbers too 😊

Great work Sir thank you

Incredible timing! Was just interested in this device.

The price of the memory cards reminds me of one Christmas when my daddy wanted to give the three of us kids USB flash drives which were just out. He asked which size we thought we could best use. I chose 256K as I was going to college. Go to Office Depot not long after Christmas and find out it was a 100 dollars. I still have it 22 years later.

So can I hack ATMs?

A fresh video from LGR,there is nothing better than this!

thats the coolest thing i have ever saw in here man! thank you!

I wish I had one of those in my collection. Awesome video!

Very cool piece of history love these kinds of videos.

I did own a Portfolio (actually, still do) and, around 1992, used it probably in the very way it was meant to be used: able to do my job (part time translator during my uni days - so, mainly using its tiny editor...) whilst on a backpaking trip with friends. I later switched to Psion 5MX and then Psion Netbook, but I'll always remember Portfolio as the first one that put me on the move. Thank you, Portfolio, you have a special place in my heart!

When you were talking about the machine's ability to produce dial tones I was getting the impression you were about to say "YEah you could this grey box into a blue box"

Some friends dont get my fascination with old tech like this. I just think it's cool how people pulled stuff off like that (and it's a neat gadget, I bet it was fun to play with)

Palmtop computers of the 90s became the netbooks of the late 2000s - a platform of promise and supremely portable, but held back by tech limitations (and our own expectations). I still watch videos like this and might not be the only one swayed by the tech of the time. …Surface Duo, anyone?

I still have one of these somewhere. Got it at a flee market, but never really used it for anything. Glad for the video still.

Had one of those when I was in my early teens....I spent endless hours programming text adventures in Basic, and created pixel graphics. I remember how expensive the 64K card was here in Austria..my only birthday present :-) Later I got a serial interface as well to connect it to my 486. However, I learned DOS commands on this device and a lot more about interfaces, data transfer and programming. Thanks Atari Portfolio :-)