Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot UMPC!

Posted by: Peter Murphy on May 31 2008

What we define as mobile devices, well it’s broadening. When we think about hand held devices, Palm has become a generic name. The term Palm Pilot, is the Most common reference to describe a PDA of any sort.

Well I got an old device handed to me the other day, and I have to question the ultra mobile portable computer. There are many of them that are not still in use and the trend towards Mids or small laptops is a reinvention, a re-visit if you like of times gone by.

The Pro Calc from Texas Instruments is one of those early hand held devices.

It’s incredible, a programmable scientific calculator, with a basic display, and demanding a very steep learning curve as far as programming languages go, for it’s time. 1987
So How do all of the small computers that are appearing now rate, and exactly how should we define them?

Now I’m not the first to bring this up, Ryan over at Endgadget today asked the question, “How do we define these gadgets”? If you are old enough, you would be able to relate to a mobile phone that weighs somewhere in the vicinity of ten kilos. Here’s an Engadget post they have forgotten,

See it went something like that, Phones went from large to small to smaller to, you had to be a mutant to use them to becoming a reasonable size for a human to use.
PC’s are becoming the next target of the miniaturisation trend, even though it’s replicating a trend from two decades ago.

One thing the marketing guru’s have missed, is the fact that there is an optimal size for a device.

Although I’ve hit on the formula,

It’s a small PC

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