Technology · Exhibit 44-A · IBM Palm Top PC110 · Japan, 1995

630 grams of 1995.

A full IBM-compatible PC the size of a paperback, bought as a travel computer, carried across China, The Gambia and Hungary, and still the smallest ThinkPad-class machine IBM ever made. This is the complete exhibit: the machine, the software, the field tests, and the community that kept it alive.

The IBM PC110 palmtop, lid open, showing PersonaWare on its 4.7-inch colour screen
Filed under
Technology · Palmtops
Reference
REF 44-110
First published
1997 · apj.co.uk
Curated by
01

Dossier

What is this thing?

The IBM PC110 is a palmtop computer released by IBM Japan in 1995. Weighing just 630 grams with a full QWERTY keyboard, it runs standard PC software and was one of the smallest IBM-compatible PCs ever made.

The PC110 (model 2170) was IBM's smallest ThinkPad-class machine. Despite its tiny size, it was a fully functional PC. It ran DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and even Linux. It included PCMCIA slots, an infrared port and a built-in modem.

I bought mine as a travel computer. It was the perfect size for writing on the road, small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, yet powerful enough for word processing and email. Information about the PC110 was scattered across forums and personal pages; this exhibit brings it all together in one place.

630gWeight, inc. 90 g battery
33MHzIntel 486SX, SL enhanced
4.7″DSTN colour · 640×480×256
20MBRAM ceiling (4 MB stock)
2+12× PCMCIA II + CompactFlash
115kbpsIrDA infrared port
A6Footprint, a paperback
1995Released, Japan only
02

Hardware

A desktop when docked, a palmtop on the road

The PC110 has a specification that is hard to beat, even today, in a PalmTop. Plugged into the mains with external keyboard, mouse and monitor, you can use it as a DeskTop machine. I have mine at work as a second computer, connected to the internal network through a network adaptor that runs though the parallel port. On the road, the IBM PC110 can be used without the docking station, keyboard, etc and run software from the internal SanDisk.

Exploded line-art diagram of the IBM PC110: lid, display, keyboard deck, PCMCIA slots, CompactFlash slot, battery and docking connector
The machine, unpacked: survey drawing, 2026
The PC110 with its accessories attached

The unit

Light weight: 630 g (including the 90 g battery), A6 size. A front-mounted LCD shows time and battery level even with the lid shut. The “Pointing Head” pointing device allows speedy one or two handed operation, and a pen-sensitive pad sits below the keyboard for drawing or signing faxes. Sound in and out is SoundBlaster-compatible.

The internal SanDisk CompactFlash card

PCMCIA and SanDisk

On the left side of the machine you have 2 Type II PCMCIA slots, though the chances are that you will use up both of them for a hard disk. On the right of the machine you have a SanDisk CompactFlash slot. This is a smaller, PCMCIA compatible, flash card which has the promise of being used widely in the future. Currently, some digital cameras use SanDisk technology to store images.

There is also 4 MB of internal flash EPROM, formatted as the boot disk.

The PC110's built-in modem and Wing Jack

Data/fax/voice modem

The internal modem is a bit pathetic, but just about useable. Windows 95 reports it as a “Standard Modem”. I have not used the PC 110 to send a fax yet nor have I used it as a phone. As the earpiece for the phone broke of very quickly and thus broke off a part of the circuit, it is unlikely that I will ever use any of the telephone functionality. However, from within Windows 95, you can use the microphone in the mouthpiece to record .WAV files.

The PC110 with its PCMCIA hard disk

PCMCIA hard disk

The optional hard disk is a Viper 260 meg device. You can make it bootable and with compression you can double it's capacity.

The PC110 in its docking station

Docking station

The Docking station has ports for an external monitor, external keyboard, external mouse (both of these have to have PS/2 connectors), a parellel and serial port and also a floppy disk connector. Note: the main unit does have a connector for an external mouse and keyboard, though these are not PS/2.

The PC110's power connector

Power

The PC 110 runs off a 10.5v power supply. This is fine for Japan and North America, though in Europe you are a bit stuffed. You have two options in europe: buy a transformer, not really an option as you have to lug the thing around with you, or buy a multi-adaptor from a Sony center or Tandy or some such. Set it to 9v and plug in. I have had absolutly no trouble with this. Infact, I am planning to buy a 9v car adaptor, so my PC 110 can be used on the move.

03

Operating systems

A tale of three boots

The IBM PC110 can run any operating system that any IBM PC compatible computer from the mid to late 90's can. This could be PC Dos, MS Dos, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 (even Windows 98 at a pinch), Windows NT 4.0, OS/2, Unix even CP/M.

  1. 1stPCMCIA hard diskWindows 95, compressed, ~400 MB reported free
  2. 2ndExternal floppyif the hard disk is out
  3. 3rdInternal SanDisk4 MB flash, PC DOS 7 and PersonaWare

The SanDisk is a flash card that is pin compatible with PCMCIA, though much smaller. The internal SanDisk has 4 megs of room on it. 2 Meg of this is used up with a stripped down install of PC Dos 7. My main control system is LapLink 3. It allows me disk and remote machine access with a very small footprint, reduced further with PkLite. Based on information from Amanda Walker's page, I have created a boot script that will allow me to boot to either Pc Dos 7 (English), Pc Dos 7 (Japanese) or (believe it or not) a ZX Spectrum Emulator.

Mainly, I use Windows 95 when I am plugged into the mains and Dos 7 when I am on the move. By doing this I can get (in theory), three hours of battery life. I've yet to test this! The beauty of tbe PC110 is that is is incredibly easy to swap from OS to OS using the PCMCIA and SanDisk technology.

My CONFIG.SYS: the three-way boot menu 
Switches=/F

[Menu]
MenuItem=PCDOS7E, PC-DOS 7 (E)
MenuItem=PCDOS7J, PC-DOS 7 (J)
Menuitem=Spectrum, Spectrum Boot.

[Common]
BUFFERS=20
FILES=40
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000-B7FF I=C900-DBFF X=DC00-DFFF FRAME=E000
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DOSDATA=UMB
SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /P /E:512 /H
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\POWER.EXE ADV:MAX
DEVICEHIGH=C:\EZPLAY\SSDPCIC1.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\EZPLAY\IBMDOSCS.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\EZPLAY\RMUDOSAT.SYS /MA=DC00-DDFF /IX=5,10 /PX=15E0-15EF,35E0-35EF,102
DEVICEHIGH=C:\EZPLAY\$ICPMDOS.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\EZPLAY\PAWATAS.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\EZPLAY\AUTODRV.SYS
DEVICE=C:\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER

[PCDOS7E]

[PCDOS7J]
COUNTRY=081,932,\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\$FONT.SYS /MSG=OFF
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\$DISP.SYS /MSG=OFF
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\$IAS.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\POWER.EXE ADV:MAX
INSTALL=C:\DOS\IBMMKKV.EXE /M=S /Z=4 /C /L /J=90 /S=C:\DOS\MULTDICT.PRO /U=C:\$USERDICT.DCT

[SPECTRUM]

[COMMON]
LASTDRIVE=F
STACKS=9,256
My AUTOEXEC.BAT 
@Echo Off
Cls
C:\SMARTDRV.EXE
PROMPT $P$G
PATH C:\;C:\DOS;c:\Spectrum
LH C:\DOS\MOUSE.COM

Goto %CONFIG%

:PCDOS7E
LH C:\DOS\KEYB.COM JP

Goto End

:PCDOS7J
LH C:\DOS\KEYB.COM JP,932,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS
LH C:\INKDRV.COM
IF EXIST C:\PW\PW.BAT C:\PW\PW.BAT

Goto End

:SPECTRUM
LH C:\DOS\KEYB.COM JP
C:\SPECTRUM\Z80
Goto End

:End
04

Software

PersonaWare: the Japanese PIM, decoded

The PersonaWare title screen PersonaWare's main menu running on the PC110
PersonaWare, as shipped: entirely in Japanese

The IBM PC110 comes with a stripped down version of PC Dos 7 and a PIM called PersonaWare. To receive calls whilst in Dos mode you get a TSR called coSession and also a program to convert sound files (wav <> tvc). If you buy the optional hard disk, you also get Windows 3.1(J).

PersonaWare as supplied with the PC110 is Japanese. That is always going to be a problem. However, here, for the first time, you can download a full version of PersonaWare in English, three key modules converted, and now I use it extensively.

(ESC=cancel/abort, ENTER=ok; F12=save&exit.) Generally I'd say: just take a bit time and try everything out. You cannot format your flash, you could only delete some files, so make a backup first. By pressing F1 you'll get help, of course always in Japanese.

The PersonaWare field manual: every application, every F-key (from the Marko Schuster FAQ, prettied up)

Main screen

F2 add an application, you can install every com or exe file in the PATH, even “win.com”. F3 delete, F4 change (description, button text, executable, icon, picture), F5 move, F7/F8 scroll if more than 2×8 are installed. F10 Secretary, today's schedule and your biorhythm. F11 tools and settings. F12 toggles the button bar; Ctrl-Q quits. Icons are OS/2 format; the pictures are 190×250 16-colour BMPs, no problem to draw your own.

Schedule

F2 add entry (description, secret flag, start/end, place, alarm), F8 repeats (daily/weekly/monthly/yearly), F5 search, F6 switch view, press d/w/m/h/l to jump straight to day, week, month, half-year or list. F7 go-to calendar, F9 zoom, F10 to-do list, F12 save & exit. The DEFAULT.SCD file is just a comma-separated list, very easy to convert to and from.

Address

F2 add entry, and yes, F11 > o adds a 150×150 16-colour BMP photograph to each person. F10 dials the selected entry. DEFAULT.ADD is comma-separated too, which makes the Outlook converter possible.

E-Mail

Not a special email program, it's a terminal programme! F3 hang up, F5 capture on/off, F7/F8 download/upload (X/Zmodem). Either it has no ansi/vt100 or I haven't find a way to activate it.

FAX & Telephone

F6 toggles “service” mode (call a number, receive a fax); F10 chooses text-only or text with a header or footer picture you draw on the memopad. Faxes go in fine-mode with a Japanese header. Telephone dials a number with the built-in modem.

World Clock

Get the English city1s.txt first so the cities aren't in Japanese. Four clocks at once; F5 answers “what's the time in X if it's …:… here”; F8 re-centres the map on your home town.

Calculator

More than it looks: F6 switches through scientific, measure/weight conversion (mm to miles, ha to acres, °C/°F/K) and financial modes. F9 shows everything in decimal and hex.

Editor & Draw Memo

An ASCII editor with search/replace, three faces and zoom (Ctrl-F9 switches font). Draw Memo: sketch on the memopad with the pen, F9 flips between drawing and a thumbnail index.

Game

Clear the table by removing matching adjacent tiles, (n−2)² points, bonuses for clearing a whole tile type. F8 is “magic” (−100 points, high risk). Once you get into it, it is fiendishly addictive and difficult.

Personal

Your private area, password-protected: name, blood type (used for your daily “fortune”), addresses, insurance card, driving licence, passport, credit cards, anniversaries. Press F5 in the Secretary for a fortune based on your blood type, Business, Money, Love, lucky number.

DOS & Power MGT

DOS opens a DOS box (type “exit” to return). Power MGT runs the PS2 programme, low/med/high power modes, LCD and power timeouts, Japanese DOS environment only.

The software I use

When in Dos mode, I do either small note taking or play some games. On long journeys, my PC 110 turns itself into a glorified games machine. I do this by running a Spectrum Emulator. The executable has been reduced in size using PkLite; the games are stored in snapshot files which are between 20 and 48k in size. This means I can have a wealth of high quality (though somewhat old, mainly from the mid to late 80's) games, with a low disk space penalty. All of this software takes up only 2 meg's of space.

Currently I have a multiple boot setup so I can run Dos/Dos Japanese/Windows 3.1. This is so I can use Personaware and Windows 3.1, get access to the Web and my E-Mail. I am running Microsoft Internet Explorer as my web browser.

05

Field tests

Five expeditions, three failures, one radio interview, one triumph

The PC110 is an ideal tool for creating Web pages when away from the office, or as a high powered portable games machine, during those long train and plane journeys. When travelling, you don't want to carry a laptop with you, but a PalmTop is small enough to carry in a coat pocket or in your travel bag. To publish from the field you need two things: e-mail contact with the outside world, and a way to get photographs onto the machine in a timely fashion. Everything below is what actually happened.

  1. FAILED

    First field test: Tiananmen Square, Beijing

    Seamus Waldron using the PC110 on a camera bag in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, December 1996
    Travels in China · December 1996

    What a disaster this was! The theory was sound, but it just didn't work. Objective: send some e-mail from China, NOT using Windows, ie running everything from Dos, for “a profound journey”, I will need to stick a PCMCIA modem/satellite transiever into the slot that my hard disk currently occupies, therefore everything needs to be DOS based.

    My solution was simple: use DosCIM to connect to Compuserve and then send my e-mail. Why didn't it work? Well, first of all, there is no access number for Compuserve in China, therefore you need to go through a 'broker' and this costs $$$$. Before I could even make a connection, the Chinese power socket blew up my power cable. The phones were all hard wired and then the batteries ran down.

    Lesson: use a local access provider if you can, or subscribe to a truely Global Internet Service, and don't rely on plugging your PC110 directly into the phone line of your hotel.

  2. FAILED

    Second field test: Over Africa, The Gambia

    I joinined the Over Africa expedition, to provide remote telecommunications. I flew out to Banjul in The Gambia on July 19th 1997. With me was my now faithfull travel companion, my PC110, a GPS, acoustic coupler, a not quite installed version of WebBoy and my snowboard.

    To say that things did not go well was an understatement. The bottom line was that it was impossible to get a clean telephone line. The only access to telephones are through local GamTel offices. Connecting PC110 to acoustic coupler and attaching to phone should have worked, but guess what? The charging mechanism sends a very load click follwed by a blank on the line, my comms software didn't have a chance. I did use Ameol, an excellent email package for use with the British CIX online service.

  3. ON AIR

    Interlude: “The Works”, BBC World Service

    Between the 9th and 16th of August, “The Works” was broardcast worldwide on the BBC World Service. This edition, Week 32, I was the studio guest talking about the travelling I do and the technology I employ. The BBC World Service is the largest Radio station in the world and has an audience of 140 million world wide.

  4. SUCCESS*

    Third & fourth field tests: Hungary, Austria, Germany

    The third field test was in August 1997, departure to Budapest on August 21. The trip was supposed to involve traversing from Hungary to the United Kingdom in a “combi” van. What happend was absolutely typical, I had a total failure in luck: the combi-van had blown-up in Austria, so we went for a holiday instead, returning a few days later by plane.

    However, the fourth field test was an absoute result. After a few days partying, I traveled through Hungary, Austria and Germany. I finally hit upon a combination of software and hardware that worked well: a global internet access account from IBM Global Network, which had POPs in nearly every country you can think of, and Ameol from CIX.

  5. TOTAL SUCCESS

    Burgundy, France: communications on the move

    For three weeks in September 1998, I was in the Burgandy region of France. Quiet, out of the way, noisest thing, the local duck. With a modem upgraded PC110, Ameol, IBM Global Internet, my Telefast acoustic coupler a telephone card and telephone box, I was able to upload/download my email and surf the web with absolutely no problems at all. This is how it should be. Nothing to report other than, total success.

Entertainment on the move

So, you don't want to use your PC110 all the time for work? DOOM, what else? Get it cranked up on your harddisk, get volume up and play it on the underground when the guy next to you has his walkman blaring too loudly. Ha! Revenge is sweat. But Doom has to be played on your Hard Disk, if you want games from the internal flash card, the best solution is a ZX Spectrum emulator and then a handfull of games (each of these only take up about 48k). Your'e not going to get Doom, but there are quite literally thousands of games out there and a huge number of them are superb.

06

Questions & answers

Real questions I was asked, and the replies: period advice, preserved

Should I get a PC 110?

My advice, if you get one, would be to clearly define in your own mind what it is you want to do with it. I use mine as a cross between a business machine (window95 on hard disk) and leisure machine & PIM (remove hard disk and use internal flash rom to host PCDOS 7 and various DOS software). When you know what you want to do, then get the machine to suit.

Where can I get one?

Douglas Krone at Dynamism used to supply the PC110 and may have some units or spare parts. However, the supply of PC110 units has almost run dry.

Does it use regular AA size batteries?

No it doesn't. It has a battery from IBM (Part No 84g7953), but I am told Sony sells them as well (last about 15% longer apparently). However, I am creating a cradle that will take standard D-Cell batteries and plug into the Main connector, for emergency power when I'm far away from anything remotely like a Sony Centre!

How long does a charge last?

When I'm running Windows95, I get only about an hour. Running from the flash card give me at least double that (I've never run it all the way down).

Can I add more RAM?

Well, I got mine with 8 meg. It can go to 16 and higher, but above 16 would definately be bootleg.

Is the display good?

The display on my machine is very clean and crisp. Small, but clear. I personally have no trouble with the size of fonts under 95, though my collegues have said it was too small.

Can I write on the screen with a pen or finger?

The screen is not touch sensative. The touchpad thing only works from within PersonaWare and does not support character recognition. The idea is that you use it for signing faxes and suchlike. A small driver has since been written that allows you to use the touchpad as a mouse in Windows 3.1/Windows95, see downloads. And no, Graffiti doesn't work; the only app that uses the digitizer is Personaware, and this is Japanese only.

What about the PCMCIA slots and a bigger hard disk?

It's 2×type II PCMCIA slots which will work as 1 type III. My HD is Type III and therefore I have no additional room for a pcmcia modem. The HD plugs into the PCMCIA slot, so if a drive is PCMCIA V2.1 (apparently V2.0 will not work), then in theory a 1 GB drive should work.

Can the internal modem be upgraded?

There's no known way to change out the internal 2400 modem. What can be done is: run Win95 on a Type 3 hard drive, but when you want to do some serious web surfing, have Win 3.1 on a 20MB Flash card and boot it and then have a 28.8 modem in the other slot.

Which version of Windows 95?

If you're currently running Windows 95 on an IBM PC110, I strongly recommend upgrading to Windows 95 OSR2 if you can. OSR2 can power down a PCMCIA hard disk during idle time without PCMCIA drivers loaded, noticeably better battery life, and it removes the screen redraw when you wake from sleep. Little things, but useful. Amanda Walker

Sound drivers in Windows 95

Windows 95 will recognize the internal sound card as an ES488 AudioDrive but may not work. If you remove this driver and install the Sound Blaster driver, it will, but you will not get Volume Control on your Taskbar. A solution is to keep the ES488 driver and just manually change IRQ number from 7 to 5 in Control Panel > System > Devices > Sound > ES488 > Properties > Resources.

The ROM password

To remove a password: at the password prompt, type the password, then a space, then Enter. To change it: type the password, a space, the new password, another space, the new password again, then Enter.

The 256-colour saga and its solution

Robb Woldman could not get English Win95 to run in 256 colour VGA mode, the machine died and rebooted to 16 colours every time, with the C&T Super VGA driver giving a scrambled strip at the bottom of the screen. Five out of six people on comp.sys.palmtops had no trouble at all; the sixth had the exact same problem. The culprit: the 20 meg memory upgrade requires a Flash BIOS update.

The fix (in Robb's words): “Seamus, pop open a bottle of champagne!! Believe it or not, we can now close the chapter on 256 display problems in Win95!!!” Format a floppy, then at a C: prompt run loaddskf /f biosup.dsk a: to create the patch disk. Boot from it, hit F5 halfway through to bypass config.sys, and type xpatch at the A: prompt, the response should be “OK”. Cold boot, check with xpatch ? (“completed.”), put the HD back in, switch the display to C&T Accelerator at 256 colors. Lo and behold, it worked! The files are in downloads.

What's this about a DOS web browser from IBM?

WebBoy is a DOS based Web Browser which has e-mail capabilities. It's small footprint allows the utilisiation of older (386, 486) PC's to access Intranets and the Internet.

Bigger CompactFlash cards (from the field)

Randy Stauffer: “I've bought one of those compact flash cards (called smart picoflash in the 110 manuals) with a capacity of 15MB. On it I have a complete Windows 3.1 installation, along with WinCim. Using the compact flash you can install a minimal version of Windows along with WinCim and have a GUI for your WWW and Email use. Also extends battery life significantly, gets close to 3 hours using the Sony NP530 series battery.” (Around $200 to $250 at T-Zone in Sunnyvale, 1997 money.)

07

The community

The PC110 web ring, preserved

The English PC110 community grew steadily through the late Nineties, but alas has peaked, as users move towards more modern machines. Before users started to remove websites, this list was the start of an archiving effort. Most of these sites are long gone from the live web, every link below goes to the Internet Archive's copy, nearest to 2003.

08

Downloads

The archive shelf: every file, still here

PersonaWare in English, converted module by module, plus the BIOS patch that ended the 256-colour saga, and the small tools that made the machine liveable. Served from this site, as they have been since 1998.

To install the English PersonaWare modules: change to your PersonaWare directory and make a backup of all your .EXM files, copy the files in the archive over, and run PersonaWare as normal, now it is in English.