The horde of DOS-based Palmtop Computers in 1990s

Even though I was a big fan of the PDAs during the 1990s, I had zero memory of having seen or heard about almost all of these DOS-based 386/486 Palmtop Computers during those years (perhaps except for the HP's). Porbably they were marketed to the high-end niche market, and definitely not to poor college kids...

http://www.tankraider.com/DOSPALMTOP/list.html

They do look like the actual precursors of the H/PCs, don't they?

The keyboard of many of these seem so touchtypable. Many run on AA batteries too (some even for WEEKS). This must be LosTech ... And quite close to my ideal device.

Yes, they do....

Thanks for sharing the link....that is quite the list!

The HP 200LX were built like tanks....very high quality.

Speaking of tanks, this one really looks like a cool future warmachine

They had issues whereby the tension of the right hinge practically popped out of the plastic, which luckily hasn't happened to mine ( 200LX 1MB ) which is still going strong. The plastic doesn't chip & shatter like so many other 90s plastics, which is a huge deal. Mind you HPCs appear to have been constructed with much better quality plastics than the average laptop of the day.

Great list! I didn't realize there were so many aside from the HP LX series.

My feeling is the design concepts and form factors were in a way carried over from these DOS handhelds in the early 90s to the CE devices in the late 90s' and beyond, which could have been made more obvious in The History of Windows CE. This connection was particularly evident for the HP early DOS Palmtops and the later LX CE models, and the NEC MobileGear and MobilePro.