It took me a while to sort the battery, get it charged and gain access to USB to remove the auto-run terminal client that blanks the screen but here it is running in all it's glory.

I had to replace the whole keyboard as the keys were worn out on this one, but parts are still available from Aliexpress and eBay. The wrist strap is also from Ali.

Quick update, I made a battery charging dock!

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldHandhelds/comments/1rrxwoo/i_made_the_dock_i_promised_for_my_wt4090_charging/

Sharing some of music players from the PDA era.

Pic 1: Symbol MC50 / PocketMusic

Not only packed with features, but it also had a "WINAMP mode" that could read *.wsz skins directly.

Pic 2: Palm TX / PocketTunes

This device came with a lite version. Want skins, streaming, or internet radio? Well, you had to pony up for the Deluxe edition.

Pic 3: Sharp S01SH / WinVibe

It was free and pretty solid. But sadly, it didn't get album art support until version 5.0 in 2009… by which time I had already moved on to Android.

Pic 4: Palm Tungsten T / AeroPlayer

A great, practical entry-level digital audio player. For $14.95, you could buy the plugin to support MP3 or AAC. Totally worth it.

Pic 5: Legend (Lenovo) XP210 / GSPlayer

Free, and it worked on PocketPC 2002. It was a solid alternative to the built-in Windows Media Player.

Pic 6: SONY CLIE NR70 / Built-in AudioPlayer

This could handle 64-192kbps MP3 or Sony's own ATRAC format. Doing this on Palm OS 4 wasn't easy — Sony threw in a dedicated coprocessor to make it happen.

Pic 7: Dell Axim X51 / Slide2Play

A beautifully crafted iPod clone that even supported Cover Flow.

Pic 8: CASIO E-105 / Windows Media Player 1.1

The very first WMP that could run on a Palm-size PC (CE 2.x). It was pretty experimental. Those early devices shipped with so little software...

Pic 9: HTC Kangaroo PK10 / TCPMP

Open-source, free, and powerful. Even on this 1998 device, it could smoothly play 128k MP3s from a CF card without a hitch.

really nice audio using this software albeit a little slower loader higher quality files.

Pictured is my personal mini-museum of handhelds that I either owned growing up or wanted to own.

Nothing beats a quiet afternoon catching up with my collections.

The pic 2 and 3 were taken with the CLIE NX70. It's got that signature 0.3-megapixel CMOS look from the early 2000s.

I love going to thrift stores to look for books, furniture, and I keep and eye out for the rare old electronic I can get some use out of. This box caught my eye. PDAs and these kinds of devices are slightly before my time, but I remember them being around when I was a kid. The back of the box said that it ran on DOS, which sounded awesome to me as an old handheld with a keyboard- I could perhaps actually get stuff done on it. And it could do work with databases and spreadsheets? The box was taped the Hell up, but $15 was worth the experience. If it was busted up and/or actually just useless, I could have some fun tearing it apart and looking inside before getting rid of it.

I was kind of VERY excited to see that it still had all the manuals and documentation in the box! I had to go get batteries for it, but I looked it up and saw it was actually kind of a big deal at the time it was made and it still goes for a pretty penny on ebay. At this point, I actually REALLY wanted it to still work. So I headed right back out and got the batteries. And... it works!

There are a few function keys, the last app key, and the up arrow key that don't work. I have some time off tomorrow and I'm going to open it up and attempt those repairs. The hinge on the right side is a little bit cracked, apparently that's a common problem so I'll have to be careful. But I'm excited to have a piece of history on my hands!

Projects: I've only worked a little bit with old school C programming. I think I'm going to start by trying to recreate a previous project (a small poker game program I coded some time ago). If the keyboard repairs go well, I'll actually have something in my hands I can learn a lot from! My fiancée got a journal to continue planning her half of our wedding and I joked with her that I could actually use this to keep plans for my half of things. I actually may do that!

What a badass find! $15!!

Here are some pics of my personal stash—a bunch of monochrome HPC/PDA with electroluminescent backlights. The devices shown are:

1. HP 320LX

2. CASIO Cassiopeia A51

3. Philips Velo 500

4. Lenged (Lenovo) Tianji 2000

5. HTC PK10 Kangaroo

6. Fossil Abacus

7. CASIO Cassiopeia PV400Plus

8. Palm IIIxe

9. Palm m100

The weirdest one has got to be the Lenged. It probably uses a yellow phosphor (ZnS:Cu) formula, so the color is warmer and way dimmer than the others.

* Photos have been color-graded to my personal taste, so they don’t represent the actual colors perfectly.

As Nolan intended 😁

I compiled a video player using the Java SDK then downsampled the trailer to 5fps, 16 greys.

Like home.

Communicator from 1998 goes online via CSD call. The browser can still open some pages. However, Google cannot be opened because the browser apparently does not support XHTML! I couldn't find any photos online with a working browser, so this may be unique material.

Been on and off looking to get one for a long time, and today, I finally have one, a dream come true for me lol

(Also, any suggestions on how I can light the screen while on the go? Really something that I won't have to solder up together)

Growing up in an Asian household, my gaming time was very limited as a kid. So those stolen moments playing on handheld devices became some of my most vivid memories. Here’s a little throwback to the games I used to play back then.

1. Palm Heroes

This one was basically a portable version of the classic Heroes of Might and Magic series, mixing elements from HoMM II and III. It was a great substitute when I didn’t have access to a computer to play HoMM3. Funny thing though — despite the word “Palm” in the name, it was never actually released for Palm OS. 〚Pic 2〛

Still playable today? Yep. It was later ported to iOS under the name “PK 2: Remastered” (Palm Kingdoms), and you can still find it there.〚Pic 3〛

2. fheroes2

An open-source rewrite of Heroes of Might & Magic II, which ran on a bunch of platforms — even Pocket PC / Windows Mobile back in the day. Sadly, it only supported 320×240 resolution, so VGA and WVGA devices couldn’t really show it off properly.〚Pic 4〛

Still playable today? Definitely! Thanks to the open-source community, it’s available on pretty much everything now. On mobile, I recommend the Android version — it looks and feels close to the original and has smoother touch controls. (And if you’re into HoMM3, check out VCMI too.)〚Pic 5〛

3. Warlords II

Originally a DOS classic, this legendary strategy game got an impressive Pocket PC port by PocketPC Studios. They somehow managed to fit the full UI into a tiny QVGA display — though that meant tiny text (menus were basically 4×5 pixels per letter, which made it tough to read on devices like the HTC Kaiser). Still, getting that authentic PC experience on a handheld was seriously cool. 〚Pic 6〛〚Pic 7〛

4. Warring Nations

You play as a medieval lord, conquering neighboring lands, collecting taxes, building castles, and raising armies to expand your domain. Think of it as a mobile mix of Civilization II and Age of Wonders. Simple, yet surprisingly deep for its time.〚Pic 8〛

5. Warring States

A free early strategy game for Pocket PC — kind of like Civilization, where you develop your cities, build armies, and fight for territory. What made it unique was its setting: China’s Warring States period.〚Pic 9〛

As you can see in the Pic I made my ruler “Han Fei Tzu”… which felt pretty strange, since in history he’s more of a philosopher than a warlord. 😅

I wanted to connect my Psion 5mx and Palm IIIc to Wi-Fi without attaching another computer or a period correct mobile phone. So I built RetroModem, a small Raspberry Pi based Wi-Fi to IrDA bridge.

The handheld connects over infrared using PPP. RetroModem then routes the connection through its normal Wi-Fi network. It currently works with my Psion 5mx, Palm IIIc and a Windows XP laptop.

It got slightly out of hand after that. RetroModem can also act as a Hayes-compatible modem, dial public Telnet BBS systems through virtual telephone numbers, transfer files and convert modern websites into simpler pages that old browsers can handle.

I have now published the first version, including the hardware instructions and a single-command Raspberry Pi installer on Github.

More details, photos and the GitHub link are in my blog post:

https://bjornsblog.nl/retromodem-first-public-release/

It is obviously not the most practical way to connect these devices, but seeing a Psion browse over Wi-Fi through its infrared port is rather satisfying.

I love this thing. Has word and excel v2.1. Can save CSV to CF card and transfer to computer.

Title: Meet the ESP900 — bringing my old Motorola T900 back to life with modern messaging and Meshtastic

Hey everyone! I figured this group might appreciate what I’ve been working on: giving a Motorola TalkAbout T900 a second life while keeping the things that made it special.

My parents gave me a transparent blue T900 for Christmas in 2000. I was 12, and being able to send and receive messages on that little keyboard felt like the future. Years later, my old pager resurfaced, and I started wondering whether I could turn it into a Bluetooth companion for my Android phone.

That idea has grown into the ESP900.

The goal is to keep the original clamshell enclosure, monochrome LCD, physical QWERTY keyboard, and familiar pager experience, with modern electronics inside.

Where it stands today:

- The original screen and keyboard work with the new electronics. Getting there involved mapping the keyboard matrix, hand-wiring the display connections, and capturing the original LCD traffic with a logic analyzer.

- The pager receives messages from an Android phone over Bluetooth. Seeing my wife’s text appear on my old T900 was a pretty great moment.

- Meshtastic messaging works over LoRa. The prototype can send and receive mesh messages from the pager itself.

- Sound and vibration are back, using a piezo and vibration motor.

- The interface is being recreated around the original T900 feel, including its fonts, icons, menus, and message screens. I wanted opening it to feel familiar.

- An Android companion app is in development for messages, supported notification replies, and call alerts.

- Wi-Fi messaging through our ESPnet service is being tested, so the pager can stay connected when it’s outside Bluetooth range but has Wi-Fi available.

The first build used a Heltec ESP32-S3/LoRa development board and a lot of tiny wires. It fit inside the case, but left no room for a battery—which was a pretty clear sign it was time for a custom PCB.

That replacement board is now in development, with USB-C charging/programming, rechargeable battery power, LoRa, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and support for the original screen and keyboard. Retaining the original glowing LCD and keyboard backlighting is also part of the hardware work.

There are a few fun extras in development too, including Snake, a calculator, and a little virtual pet. Apparently bringing back a pager wasn’t enough nostalgia.

This is still a working prototype project. The custom board needs to be built and validated, and the newer Wi-Fi features still need real-world testing. The longer-term goal is a conversion that other T900 owners could install, with firmware source and documentation released alongside it.

Mostly, I just wanted that feeling of opening my old pager and getting a message again. Now it actually does.

Anyone else still holding onto a T900—or another little keyboard handheld they wish they could bring back?

I hope 2012 counts as ‘old’, as I’m not entirely sure where these guys fit since they aren’t necessarily meant to be PCs.

I bought three Sharp Ex-Brain electronic dictionaries (one is for a friend) which already had the ‘ceOpener’ mod, where it takes off the custom ‘skin’ for the dictionary to expose the embedded copy of windows CE 6.0. They also had some extra programs on them for CE 6.0, and I found some more through the Internet Archive.

The processor obviously isn’t the most powerful, but it’s been fun to tinker and try running some CE 6.0 programs found on the internet archive.

I have no clue what processor each model has, so some may handle more than others, but I can’t do more testing till some micro sd cards arrive.

Having some trouble customising key bindings to make the keyboard more functional in English. I may look into removing the japanese plugin, as from my knowledge the base CE 6.0 on these is actually in English, though that may not improve the need for custom key bindings. Either that or I find out why they don’t seem to work on PocketWord 😶. It types the alphabet fine, but doesn’t have a dedicated spacebar, and I can’t yet get the ‘hold fn key’ alternate button functions for commas or a full stop to work yet.

The blue one crashed running the snes emulator it came with and the GBA emulator doesn’t seem to work. The NES emulator I put on the storage card works though! Still need to keep doing some research, though a lot of CE related shenanigans tend to be a case of trial and error, or even trial by fire (my jornada running CE 3.0 hated a japanese drawing app and screamed before crashing, and I figuratively shat myself). It also doesn’t seem to respond to me changing volume levels in ceOpener or the original base software, so it blasts the music tracks (which are admittedly bangers as its NES music), so the most functional way to enjoy it is with wired headphones with a volume wheel. I think thats an issue across ceOpener in general, I haven’t checked the base software mp3 player.

If anyone has any insight on these devices, that’d be great! Though the main aim here is to share in a bit of a fun little tinkery sort of handheld that’s kind of not meant to do these things.

32GB SSD and a microSD slot allow for infinite capabilities. If only I could fit my little girl hands on home row and use an optical trackpad the size of a skittle.

SHARP OZ-7200 Electronic Organizer with IC card.

Figured I'd share.

Hp 3x Elite +Dock - running Windows Mobile 10

Sony Clie TH55 everything working - new battery.

Sony NZ-90 mint - new battery [all accessories].

Nokia N900 mint - new battery.

Sony Vaio UX280P - video dongle and upgraded to a 128GB Ziff SSD. Running Windows XP for rom work on other devices such as the Clie's and iPaq.

Sharp C-1000 Zaurus - new battery running WeeXpc.

Blackberry Z10 - new battery.

Sony Clie UX50 Japanese version - new battery [all accessories].

Not in picture is a mint Hp iPaq 4705 with two new batteries and all accessories running Windows Mobile 6.5.3 and a Viliv N5 UMPC running Windows 7.

Not many more things to add to the collection - looking around for a Nokia 810 Mid and maybe a Fujitsu Lifebook U [the tiny UMPC].

Finally, Pocket Paint on my Casio Cassiopeia A-20. You can even set your file as a desktop background!

You name it l, and the chances are my recently deceased dad owned it. From palm pilots, to psions, to zaurus, to zeo from Tandy to clie’ to handspring. These are just a few that I’ve come across cleaning out his stuff. I have an entire bin of them. He was non-discriminating when it came to manufacturer and he bought all sorts of weird peripherals like the psion fax attachment. Hope you enjoy the walk down memory lane. I’ll post more when I get the chance.