The iPad from 1998 

What are some of the coolest old pieces of tech from this era? Plus, check out FREE Download Filmora 13 PC:bit.ly/3x2eSaj

When you asked what Access is I was stunned. That was MS Office’s Database application back in the day, did a bunch of work on that in high school

Good video and nice device. One thing - Windows CE is not based on Windows 95. It is completely separate codebase based on different kernel, not based on Windows 9x or Windows NT. It was created by Microsoft for devices like PDA, mobile phones (mobile Windows up to Windows Phone 7 was based on Windows CE), embedded devices etc. It also doesn't run desktop Windows software. I guess this was the reason why this device wasn't very popular.

YOOOOO. OK, so I remember seeing a picture of one of these things appearing in a magazine at my mom’s hair salon when I was in middle school. That was the only time I ever saw any evidence of this thing existing and then NEVER heard about it again, but I remember seeing the ad and thinking it was the coolest computer I’d ever seen and for like a year I wanted it more than anything I’d ever wanted in my entire life at that point (it’s since been replaced by a desire for affordable housing and a viable sense of self-worth, but I digress). After awhile I forgot about it entirely and life went on. I randomly thought about it again sometime in my early 20s during the netbook craze and thought about going online to look for one, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the model number and nobody I asked had any idea what I was talking about. Completely frustrating. When I tell you as soon as I saw the thumbnail for this video my heart STOPPED. I DIDN’T imagine it after all, it really WAS a thing that existed! VALIDATION

It failed because it was Windows CE. it was extremely limited.

So, uh, that dongle is a Serial Port. Not VGA.

Luke, the "thing" at minute 2:27 is not a VGA but a RS232 Serial Port, or for a mouse or industrial usage. VGA connector has 3 lines of pins.

Also known as “Clio” by Vadem, the company that developed it. I owned one, and used it actively for a few years. Quite usable for basic “office” functions, like word processing, spreadsheets, email, etc. I really liked the keyboard feel although not full-sized. I often used my fingernail on the screen instead of the stylus. The location of stick-like battery also served as a handle to make it easy to grip and hold with one hand in tablet mode, unlike recent iPads with “edge-to-edge” screen. When I pulled it out in a public place, people would ask me about it because it was mostly unknown even when new and being sold by Vadem and Sharp. It failed because it ran Windows CE, the light-weight mobile version of Windows that never caught on.

1998 was in the decade where decent usb ports didn’t exist yet. that form factor was related to the i-opener, an internet appliance with the same form factor but not portable. it was mean to go in the kitchen or desk and hook with a landline for internet. folks back then were hacking it by multibooting it and making a full blown pc for under $200. that was big back then when average pcs were considered very expensive.

From today's perspective it was modest, but not back then. Windows CE ran on many devices that required little power and were designed for specific purposes. Especially, diagnostic devices and POS systems. It was also real-time capable. But it wasn't a universal operating system, but rather modular. If necessary you could also just install the kernel. And this device was probably intended more for warehouse management.

This is literally modern archeology ❤

I’m the same vintage as your Dad so was there at the time. These types of devices failed for a number of reasons. They were outrageously expensive and you could put that money towards a desktop and get way more functionality - mobile computing was a poor experience to say the least. Devices like this tried to sell a dream. They were horrible at networking, as Windows at the time was horrible at networking just in general. They were janky in that there were lots of drivers and updates, installing applications was tedious and not always completely successful and printing was not enjoyable to say the least. So while this device might trick you into thinking it was an iPad of its day, to compare the two devices is like comparing a Tesla to a potato. I’m not shocked they never succeeded.

Bit sad we didn’t see your dads old one get fired up to see what he used it for back in the day! Very interesting device glad I now know it existed.

When the PC RAM was smaller than CPU cache memory of today.

I love this. You see the visionary ingenuity of Japanese companies like Sharp long before these form factors became a mainstay.

Don't forget about the Toshiba Libretto from 1996 which ran full fat Windows. That was a netbook years before netbooks.

Love the aesthetic.

I had no idea this thing existed and I'm genuinely impressed. Apparently I wouldn't have needed much more power from a computer back in the day because all I did was use Internet Explorer (or AOL) and play those pre-installed games

At 10:30 -- Now that this is older tech, it's actually almost charming and pretty funny how the audio recording and playback sounds like an early-1900's phonograph.

In the late 1990's, I was working for a company that did barcoding equipment, and mobile/handheld computers. With my heavy PC background, I was the one who worked on the PalmOS devices and WindowsCE devices. The touch screen setup screen brings back found memories, and a few nightmares. If the touchscreen won't calibrate, the OS won't boot. The worst part is when the touchscreen calibrates wrong. It is impossible to factory reset the device. I replaced a lot of them in the day.

This is just perfect inspiration for a new Magic Keyboard design!

I love these old devices that got it right decades ago.

Back in the 90's a friend got a brilliant job testing and selling this sort of gear.One time he came home with a tablet that was A4 size,had a stylus like the s-pen which plugged into the screen.It was nearly 1" thick had its own shoulder bag,weighed a lot! and was never released as it had too many faults.At the time though it was straight out of Star Trek-and he knew it,posing everywhere.He worked for them about six years and retired before he was 40 a full blown millionaire.

I had the compaq Tablet in School in 2005, and was the only one with a tablet. It was a killer device with onenote and kept me organized.

I would really like to see a teardown of this thing

The fact that the battery worked is just 🤯

I actually LOVE this form factor. Would love this form factor in a modern laptop.

Interesting. I see similarities to the Apple eMate which was out in 1997.

I like these old-tech videos! Please do more :) .

I had the MainSteet Networks Clio version of this device. Loved it except for WinCE. Not sure why I don’t have it today as it was a great form factor. Lack of WiFi was also a challenge, so was much more useful with a wifi card. Thanks for allowing me to reminisce. - Typed on a Handspring Prism with the cellular Springboard module.

Fail for 2 reasons... NO Windows 95 / NO GAMES

I had one of these that I bought at a yard sale. It had never been used. I was always amazed at the battery life. I had a serial to usb dongle, which made it easy to interface with a pc.

What an excellent video, Luke! Can't believe this thing existed back in 98, way ahead of its time indeed!

Great Video i wish i had 1 of those at that time , my 1st computer was a Nokia Ngage Phone/Game Deck it took me over a year to learn all the basic features it still runs today i bought it in 2004 i still love to use it for game play when i can even though im 56 🙂👍

I used a Sharp PDA back in the late 80's and early 90's, and then late 90's I used PDA like HP, NEC, etc running Windows CE, and they weree great products. Of course when come to comparing the iPad launched back in 2007 and later, these vintage PDAs were going nowhere, but they did a great age for mobile Digital Assistants to tons of business executives. Thanks to Sharp and a few good companies like HP, Compaq, Microsoft, etc.

Do more content like this right here. Great trip down memory lane.

thats really thinking ahead of the curve , what a great design

Access was a database. And if your database out grew it used Visual Basic Script (which was very powerful, if a little clunky) and could ODBC into SqlServer, Oracle, etc. I automated my companies entire data production system using it.

My cousin worked at Vadem and brought the Clio to my house that I got to borrow for a couple weeks when it was just released on the market. At the time I had a Newton MP2000 so he knew I would be interested as the PDA niche was extremely geeky. Other than the larger color screen and the nifty folding mechanism, it was inferior to the Newton mostly because of limited software capability. But to this day I still wonder about having an iPad version of the Clio with the obvious silicon improvements made over the last 20+ years.

early version of the surface laptop studio 1/2🤫

I actually grabbed a Vadem Clio badged version of this off eBay to get through last couple couple years of college. Super cheap way to get office suite. I used a PCMCIA to SD adapter for file transfers and then later a PCMCIA D-Link wireless card once I had a home server going. This was around 2007ish when a new vista laptop was $900 and ran like trash out of the box.

hey Luke it would have been cool to review those word/excel/powerpoint pocket editions to see how far/close they are to the desktop counterparts, and if they were anywhere close, it'd definitely one-up the iPad.

This is officially the coolest thing that I've seen today so far! WOW!

I love the hinge mechanism and the ‏flexible screen positioning

Amazing device. I didn't know about it.

Electrical engineer here: If the battery has a proper BMS then it definitely can last this long in storage. Those cells can sit at a low SOC for a long time and still work when you try to recharge them, as long as the BMS or self discharge didnt pull the cells under 2.8v. The only degradation that would happen otherwise is callendar aging, in which these batteries are good for at least 25 years if you dont really use them much during that duration.

It is interesting to see how old devices proven to really be future proof with less technology since they can operate FOREVER without needing updates and just needing batteries to fully operate and do what they were designed for, still so much to learn about what really tech is and how things can last… Bests regards from a Venezuelan follower in Panama!

The key thing was how much at launch? And Sharp isn't a niche company lol

One of my fav videos

I used a NEC MobilePro in College and it was like a half laptop. I recall using it as a main computer for a while because my VPR Matrix Laptop was always in for repairs.

Geez this was old! Windows CE might not been my favorite, but I would prefer the modern iPad.

I remember when this came out, my first year in the US. I almost bought one but I had to buy a car and furnish an apartment etc. such a cool device for the time.

You know someone is young when they don't know what Microsoft Access is.

I had one of these. It was great - for a little while. Eventually it was really only useful for very basic word processing and playing what games you could find and that would run at a decent speed. Speed was definitely and issue. Windows CE with lack of compatible apps was another issue. Also connectivity. I remember it being finicky to sync and so very slow when it did work. It does have a PC card slot and I did find a network adaptor that helped with browsing speed. Overall, it was a great idea and design, but the hardware just wasn't quite ready yet rendering it as little more that a big PDA. This was also when Palm Pilot and Windows CE handhelds were on the market. Better supported and more portable.

That's one of the most impressive retro finds I've ever seen

Had I known that this existed then, I would have bought it, but here in Belgium they are always far behind with modern stuff, but with the arrival of the Internet it has improved and so you keep up with the times.

Hey Luke! Experiencing déjà vu in your video! I distinctly recall Windows XP tablet PCs from the early 2000s, roughly between 2001 and 2003. So, tablet PCs definitely existed back then. It feels like DELL and HP were the top hardware manufacturers during that time.

Oh I remember that device, or rather the original,it is based on. I believe the original was called the Vadem Clio (updated: oh nostalgia, Vadem licensed their orototu]yep design. To Hsarp, so sharp was first, Vadem re-acquired the license to their design and released 2. Versions of the Clio, both 640x480…a 3 version was planned running the Handheld PC version of WinCE and would have featured upgrades to the screen 800x600 and the switch to an ARM processor! My dream! Sadly it was a dream and never made it to production. Really though, the concept is solid; if Apple could engineer a hinge on the

That screen made me thought that my screen was too dark for a moment.

i had a dell inspiron duo around 2011 and at the time i thought it was very futuristic. never thought the exact same idea existed 13 years earlier

I worked at a hospital around 2000 and was tasked to maintain about 30 of these for our medical staff. They were nice, but they had their limits. When the batteries were totally drained they lost all data, that was the biggest catch. Also wireless didn't exist so they had to be wired by ethernet though dialip didn work well. When I went on call I took one with me and used it for a few years with a Windows CE RDP client or Citrix client to dial into network and remote into servers or apps. It was a nice drive and yes way ahead of it's time. If screen was better, fewer issues with batteries, and if wireless was a thing then maybe it would have lasted better. Amazing doe business use, not so much for consumers.

I had one. It was amazing. Very slow but awesome.

Right now, among writers, there's a trend of dedicated writing machines. This would be perfect for focused writing.

Waoooo. I remember this . That design was decades ahead of.

This is amazing.

My favourite at the time was the Psion range of PDA’s. Their Symbian operating system also powered the many Nokia “smart” phones in the late 1990’s early 2000’s, before Apple blew them all away with the first iPhone. Great video, thanks.

After watching the other two, of your videos on the subject (first beeing from July 4th, 2015), I'd say the second one is the best produced one. It's going more deeply into the technical aspect of that device. But one can clearly see, how much you are personally into this little machine, considering you went to the trouble of purchasing a brand new device for your third video. :o)

“…pocket access, whatever that is…” 😂😂😂

Amazing! 🙂

Apple in 2024: "No, it's impossible to have a computer OS on a tablet!"

Cool stuff.

Your dad was alive in 1998! Impressive. That sounds mathematically... correct. This is the same WinCE I had on my HP Jornada. Look it up. It was super kewl, and impossible to touch type because they forgot one thing: you can't shrink human hands. Same reason the Toshiba Libretto never caught on. Look that up too. It's called "Human Factors" in Psychology or "Ergonomics" in Engineering. The 1990s was the computer miniaturization Inflection Point. We could finally make a laptop and keyboard smaller that the human hands could use. Final example of kewl but too small: HP Omnibook 800. It even had a pop out mouse! But the computer was way too small to use. BTW, you forgot to lose your mind at 3% battery. Cheers.

To me this would have been something I'd totally get. It's design is pretty cool. I wonder how videos look playing in it. You could have used it like a tablet in the car

I owned an HP convertible laptop around 2006. It was Intel-based and ran full operating systems. The worst feature was its resistive touchscreen. The touchscreen made the actual screen appear much dimmer, had a plastic flexible covering (hence resistive), and you had to press down with the stylus to get it to work. My HP overheated and died about a month after warranty. Ugh. I also had a rental car a few years later with Ford Sync, running MS software on a resistive touchscreen. That was even worse without a stylus while driving.

that was so cool!

your dad has good taste for technology. i have news for you apple is not the only one reinventing the wheel 😂

Check out the Compaq Concerto. This was my first laptop ever with pen Windows. Awesome device at the time.

Nice, thank you

“What’s access”…? Way to make me feel old!

Reminds me of a Dell Inspiron mini duo that I loved.

Quite interesting to see basically the same idea behind the iPad Pro withagic keyboard back in the late 90's

Impressive. In 1998 , I would definitely have bought it and installed chrome ASAP

When I owned and used a Newton eMate 300, this product was the natural choice for a replacement. It would have only got me halfway to the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard in 2018 though. I suppose the 11-inch MacBook Air could maybe fill the gap in the second decade, but it had terrible battery life compared to ARM, whether in Macs, Newtons or Windows CE.

Luke you need to go back in time to 1995 and go forward from there when box computer stores were nearly everywhere you would be amazed what was coming out back then.

I used WinCE for years. It was rather limited, but worked fine for what it did. Granted, I mostly used mine as an eBook reader and to take notes.

People seem to conveniently forget that Microsoft and their partners were in the tablet game for over 15 years before current day Apple was ever making these devices (I say current day because they did have the Newton, but it was also a failure). Between PalmTop PCs, PDAs, and even the Sega Dreamcast, Windows CE was everywhere and was the basis of Microsoft's mobile platform until Windows Phone 7. Even post-Windows CE there was always an effort to run regular Windows on tablets dating all the way back to Windows 3.1 which had a specific version called "Windows 3.1 for Pen Computing". Windows XP had a dedicated Tablet PC Edition as well, and starting with Windows 7, full multi-touch support was added (even though the UI wasn't suited for it). People only remember Windows 8 "copying the iPad" which was never true. Sure, they adapted regular Windows with a mobile-oriented touch UI, but as far as Microsoft's efforts in the tablet game, they've been there since day 0 in the early 1990s. It's a shame they never actually succeeded.

the irony of calling anything "pocket" and having it be "handheld" edition on this behemoth of a laptop

I have a laptop from 1998 with the original battery that works still, so I wouldn't be blown away if that one still works

😮 It's like a Microsoft surface studio from the 90!

AT&T released a tablet in 1993 called the EO Personal Communicator.

wow this device was waaaay ahead of its time, so future proof! I am not surprised that it failed to sell because it was way ahead of what people needed back in the late 90s.

I would like to see you mod this with a modern day touch screen and a Raspberry Pi stuffed inside.

You should research the Psion MC400 from almost 10 years earlier.. that was amazing but again let down by the screen

Your videos are amazing! Does the Legend himself reply? 😊🎉

I love that shirt!

It's mostly about timing and price. This was probably very expensive and ahead of its time. It also ran on Windows CE, which was great, but limited for compatibility to any apps on regular Windows.

Access at some point was (and still is for those who didn't upgrade) almost like Visual Basic 6. I cannot believe now they provided all that custom Windows forms capabilities in it.

It is nice to see someone from your generation appreciate what wowed us when we were your age. It is insane though that the Magic Keyboard is not that magic!

There was nothing on the internet yet and no apps yet. It really was ahead of its time.

Surprise that thing didn't come with an AOL disk. Nice find :D