HP 360LX to replace HP 100LX

Hi all,

This is my first post in the HPC Factor forum!

I have an HP 100LX (DOS palmtop) with a hinge issue (too loose - planning to jam slices of eraser in the space between the case and the hinge casing) that I have been using for several years. For a long time I scoffed at the WinCE devices due to lack of DOS compatibility, but now I see that there is XT-CE and PocketDOS. Given the obsolescence of WinCE, are either of these free? I see XT-CE listed on the H/PC Factor downloads page, and I would have to use this for the HP 360LX as it is WinCE 2.0 compatible. I also am interested in writing Forth and C code, and I see there is Pocket GCC and DS-Forth for WinCE.

There is an HP 360LX with everything (manuals, adapter, docking station, stylus) on eBay now for $46. I may try to bargain it down to $30, as it seems no one has bid on the item in 3 weeks. Given the DOS backward compatibility, it seems like a very nice device (backlit screen, CF card slot, PCMCIA slot, serial, 8 MB RAM, 66 MHz processor). I also have some cool new wireless serial and WiFi USB adapters built for arduinos that could be used to telnet/ssh into Linux boxes, servers, and BBSs.

Is the battery life OK? I'm planning to use 2000 mAh eneloops and hopefully avoid the backlight. My 100LX would go 8-10 hours on 900 mAh NiCds. My other DOS compatible (QuickPad Pro) runs on a 32 MHz NEC V30 system on a chip (VG330) and lasts 50-100 hours+ on 4 AA batteries (!!!).

Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks,
Jon

XT-CE/CEDos merged into PocketDOS, which is still not freeware.

Good to know! That sucks! How much for the license?

It cost 29.95 in 2009. Probably not much more expensive now.

*Edit*
It's gone down a couple of dollars. (https://secure.shareit.com/shareit/checkout.html?&sessionid=3135486218&random=e901f731fbeb30e429281fc2b8ff0289)

Edited by HPC:Fan 2018-05-22 9:41 PM

According to PocketDOS's requirements page it needs CE 2.11 and later. The HP 360LX only ever came with CE 2.0, a 2.11 ROM was never made. Basically you will need a Jornada of some sort, those were the most common of the later HPCs.

Turns out there is a <2.11 binary in the downloads page.

Edited by Paianni 2018-05-23 12:06 PM