My first PDA: Casio E-15
It seems that the desire to switch from paper books to e-books came to my mind much earlier than most of the reading fellow citizens. And the Moscow State University hostel contributed a lot to this, where, after each school year, it was necessary to take things to the left-luggage office until the fall.
Someone is still waiting for the perfect machine for constant dragging with me, but I prefer to be a realist and as soon as the stars of acceptable functionality and price come together, I’m looking for a “life partner”. For the first time this happened when the Casio E-15 appeared at McCenter for $ 195 (and another $ 15 for the battery, but this was not advertised in particular). Now it is difficult to remember the exact date of purchase, most likely the summer of 2000. This device was launched in May 1999 and in September of the same year it cost $ 415, according to the article " Palm-size PC and PalmPilot " on iXBT, from which I most likely learned about the E-15 for the first time. I remember exactly that I already owned the E-15, when Casio in June of 2001 rolled out the BE-300 Pocket Manager, which was somewhat limited, special versions of programs were released for it, but the price was very attractive.
Habravchanam reminded about this PDA for a long time, but the spirit of Bumburum doesn’t approve of reviews without a photo, but my Kaska was lost a long time ago, only the charging and the box remained. A couple of years ago, nostalgia for the first handheld escalated and I began to look for it at flea markets and online auctions. But even eBay could not offer anything. And this fall, quite accidentally, in the search engine issuance, a recently ended auction on the hammer flashed. Fortunately, there were no rates, the lot turned out to be re-installed and bought by me for a whole thousand rubles. The machine was in excellent condition, even without frequent "disease" - traces of solitaire unfolding on the screen. In my opinion, the films on the screen at that time have not yet opened, I do not remember exactly.
')
I’ll say right away that I have never been a palm tree, what happened in that world - I don’t know very well. Therefore, the story may be slightly one-sided, comparisons will be only with Windows PDAs.
The main characteristics look quite modest in modern times:
But everything else looks much more interesting:
Screen with a classic 3.5 "diagonal and a resolution of 320x240:
Well, let the 16 shades of gray, but the backlight turns off. Without illumination it can be used even in sunlight, which is not easy for modern screens. Glare a little bit, and e-paper glare.
Two AAA batteries provide 20 hours of use. In this respect, the CCP subsequently only degraded.
The battery consists of two AAA elements at 650mAh, combined with a clever jumper, which closes the additional contact and allows you to charge the battery in the cradle. Regular batteries will have to be charged separately. How this jumper is arranged, I have not figured it out yet, although the condition of the native battery is already asking. It is interesting to try to replace the batteries with 900mAh or even more, it is not clear whether the built-in charger will fully charge them.
Ergonomics left only pleasant memories:
190 grams of weight and dimensions 155x83x13mm did not delay either a pocket or a hand. Later, Casio E-125 used color for some time, which raised the bar to 250g and 131x84x20mm - the advantages still outweighed the dimensions.
Viliv S5, which I use now - this is the limit of my patience: 436 grams and 154x84x24.4mm are not placed in every pocket, but the machine does not delay the hand with long use on weight.
Only x86 processor and sufficient battery life and reconcile. Alas, this is a fee for the ability to run on the PDA the same windows programs as on the PC. At that time, there was enough synchronization of contacts and tasks with built-in Outlook and Haali Reader for reading. Surprisingly, I can’t remember any more meaningful programs.
Who knows where the e-book market would be today if Casio E-15 was positioned as a book reader, and not as a business assistant. In my opinion, all the components for making a fairly comfortable reading room were ten years ago ...
And I also have a small request - if someone has a distribution kit of the CENat crack for Windows CE 2.11, let them be written off! I even have a serial number somewhere lying around, and the distribution has disappeared.
Someone is still waiting for the perfect machine for constant dragging with me, but I prefer to be a realist and as soon as the stars of acceptable functionality and price come together, I’m looking for a “life partner”. For the first time this happened when the Casio E-15 appeared at McCenter for $ 195 (and another $ 15 for the battery, but this was not advertised in particular). Now it is difficult to remember the exact date of purchase, most likely the summer of 2000. This device was launched in May 1999 and in September of the same year it cost $ 415, according to the article " Palm-size PC and PalmPilot " on iXBT, from which I most likely learned about the E-15 for the first time. I remember exactly that I already owned the E-15, when Casio in June of 2001 rolled out the BE-300 Pocket Manager, which was somewhat limited, special versions of programs were released for it, but the price was very attractive.
Habravchanam reminded about this PDA for a long time, but the spirit of Bumburum doesn’t approve of reviews without a photo, but my Kaska was lost a long time ago, only the charging and the box remained. A couple of years ago, nostalgia for the first handheld escalated and I began to look for it at flea markets and online auctions. But even eBay could not offer anything. And this fall, quite accidentally, in the search engine issuance, a recently ended auction on the hammer flashed. Fortunately, there were no rates, the lot turned out to be re-installed and bought by me for a whole thousand rubles. The machine was in excellent condition, even without frequent "disease" - traces of solitaire unfolding on the screen. In my opinion, the films on the screen at that time have not yet opened, I do not remember exactly.
')
I’ll say right away that I have never been a palm tree, what happened in that world - I don’t know very well. Therefore, the story may be slightly one-sided, comparisons will be only with Windows PDAs.
The main characteristics look quite modest in modern times:
- The NEC VR4111 processor is clocked at 69MHz. This is a MIPS processor that performs more actions per clock than the current ARMs, so it’s incorrect to compare megahertz with modern ones directly. But still moving faster e-paper.
- 16 MB of RAM somehow lacked, then there were not very demanding programs.
- Communication with the outside world - via the COM port of the cradle and the IR port on the device itself. Not only is it not fast, it’s also difficult to find what to connect to. On eBay, you can buy a USB dock for a Targus ACP45US1 laptop , which solves the problem of old interfaces.
- The only CF expansion slot is also not very modern, although there are SD -> CF adapters. But the card in the slot is covered with a lid and does not stick out. In the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720, which was my last classic PDA, the CF card sticks out, hinting that the port is not intended for permanent use.
But everything else looks much more interesting:
Screen with a classic 3.5 "diagonal and a resolution of 320x240:
Well, let the 16 shades of gray, but the backlight turns off. Without illumination it can be used even in sunlight, which is not easy for modern screens. Glare a little bit, and e-paper glare.
Two AAA batteries provide 20 hours of use. In this respect, the CCP subsequently only degraded.
The battery consists of two AAA elements at 650mAh, combined with a clever jumper, which closes the additional contact and allows you to charge the battery in the cradle. Regular batteries will have to be charged separately. How this jumper is arranged, I have not figured it out yet, although the condition of the native battery is already asking. It is interesting to try to replace the batteries with 900mAh or even more, it is not clear whether the built-in charger will fully charge them.
Ergonomics left only pleasant memories:
- The rocking wheel on the side (judging by the later reviews on the forums, its absence in other devices turned a large percentage of potential buyers away from them).
- “Joystick” shifted to the left, which so conveniently fits in your hand while the screen is turned.
190 grams of weight and dimensions 155x83x13mm did not delay either a pocket or a hand. Later, Casio E-125 used color for some time, which raised the bar to 250g and 131x84x20mm - the advantages still outweighed the dimensions.
Viliv S5, which I use now - this is the limit of my patience: 436 grams and 154x84x24.4mm are not placed in every pocket, but the machine does not delay the hand with long use on weight.
Only x86 processor and sufficient battery life and reconcile. Alas, this is a fee for the ability to run on the PDA the same windows programs as on the PC. At that time, there was enough synchronization of contacts and tasks with built-in Outlook and Haali Reader for reading. Surprisingly, I can’t remember any more meaningful programs.
Who knows where the e-book market would be today if Casio E-15 was positioned as a book reader, and not as a business assistant. In my opinion, all the components for making a fairly comfortable reading room were ten years ago ...
And I also have a small request - if someone has a distribution kit of the CENat crack for Windows CE 2.11, let them be written off! I even have a serial number somewhere lying around, and the distribution has disappeared.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/111965/
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