While doing research for this episode, I ran across a couple of articles from 1992 that referred to the Dauphin 5000 Palmtop. It would have had a larger screen, wired stylus, and slower 25MHz 386 CPU, but better battery life and more storage than the DTR-1. However, I haven't been able to find any evidence that it actually shipped, so as far as I can tell, it never left the prototype stage.

@tarstarkusz

Жыл бұрын

If you ever need AAAA batteries again, most alkaline 9v batteries are made up of 6 AAAA batteries.

@tylerbroad9457

Жыл бұрын

@@tarstarkusz That's a really good tip.

@SeaJay_Oceans

Жыл бұрын

The Evolution of the pre- Microsoft Surface : Screen with Detachable Keyboard...

@minty_Joe

Жыл бұрын

@@tarstarkusz Another handy tip: When the 9v alkaline runs dead, tear it apart and salvage the + and - terminal assembly. They make for great 9 volt battery connectors to use in projects or wherever you need that kind of connector.

@minty_Joe

Жыл бұрын

Colin, are you thinking about seeing if you could do a CF to IDE hard drive replacement at some point? Maybe find also a PS/2 keyboard with a straight connector and pass-through to connect a PS/2 mouse. Otherwise, you'll be tying up the serial port with a serial mouse.

I really appreciate how you don’t crap on these failed tech products and companies. Instead, you commend them for the important milestones they achieved within computer evolution.

@IvorySoul696

Жыл бұрын

Without all the failures we wouldn't have the successes we do today. Someone had to try and experiment and fail.

Holy cow, a 1.3" hard drive, Ethernet, active stylus, in 1992, this device was way ahead of it's time...

@volvo09

Жыл бұрын

Looks to be a good example of "almost" being there, but being so far away. If it had a docking station it would have been pretty useable. Even for the time this looks like a hassle to use. Which is probably why it's in good shape, it wasn't carried around everywhere.

This is really futuristic for the time. Interesting that the overall concept is nowadays replicated by modern tablets with attachable keyboard pretty much identically and additionally it also has the dual-use mobile/desktop concept that has not yet really caught on but may eventually (I am writing this on a Steam Deck in desktop mode, connected to a couple of monitors, a keyboard and a trackball)

Wow, I thought I was the only person who ever saw one of those. I purchased one at a computer show, and used it as my travel unit for three years. That stylus was a good idea with some real production issues. The touchscreen feature only worked with the stylus, and that note to text software was bad to say the least. My keyboard died at the connector to the unit, so a substitute unit joined things after nine months. I finally gave up on the unit when the hard drive faulted out with a head crash. The power supply heat issue was solved in the same way you did.

Built in VGA, Ethernet and modem in 1992? That was way ahead of it's time.

AAAA batteries are used by active styluses to this day (I've got one for my Yoga notebook I bought last year). Interesting how that part of the technology really hasn't changed much in my lifetime.

@oldguy9051

Жыл бұрын

I has to use AAAA batteries in the pen of my 2014 Sony convertible. It uses technology by Ntrig, a company later bought by Microsoft for their Surface products. The longevity was good (about a year when in pen) but the availability was poor where I live. Always had to get them by mailorder -- and always in packages of two which means one would dwell in a drawer for at least a year. Generally not a problem but I never had another device which uses them. Today we have at least two alternatives available: Wacom tech uses passive styluses and other active pens like those from Microsoft & Apple use rechargeable batteries or supercaps in their pens.

@kbhasi

Жыл бұрын

Yep! If I recall correctly, pens for digitisers using MPP or Wacom AES have to have batteries.

@oldguy9051

Жыл бұрын

@@kbhasi Yes, there are some Wacom products that are "active" but use "passive" tech (no batteries) in most of their product lines that are aimed mostly at artists all use passive pen tech. Samsung smartphones AFAIK also use the passive Wacom tech for their S Pens which means you can always draw/point with them. However, their newer pens have bluetooth connection for additional functionality that need more power. They use supercaps ("capacitors with a very high capacitance") like rechargeable batteries for this. Older Microsoft Surface pens have two(!) kinds of batteries in them: the AAAA ones for basic pen use and tiny button cells for additional bluetooth functionality (essentially, only a single button to get a menu or an app on screen). Changing them was a hassle. Microsoft has refined this and their "Slim Pens" use rechargeable Li-Ion batteries that can be quickly recharged in their "Signature" keyboard cover for the Pro 8 and Pro 9 tablets or under the keyboard (Surface Studio Laptop).

@dustojnikhummer

Жыл бұрын

Yep, my ThinkPad Yogas active pen uses a AAAA battery. Microsoft Surface lens also use a AAAA

@Ozymandias1

Жыл бұрын

The original Apple Pencil has a clumsy charging way, you have to put its rear end into your iPad’s Lightning connector and hope you don’t demolish one or both by bumping into it.

I remember seeing one of these (or something very similar) in Japan when I was in the Navy in the early 1990s. Always thought it was cool as it was the first touch screen device I'd ever seen.

Looks like the replacement stylus is very similar to the one used for the HP TC1100. The TC1100 was one of my favorite computers ever. Got me through much of college.

@RaduTek

Жыл бұрын

I suspect it's the stylus for the (HP) Compaq TC1000, the predecesor of the TC1100. I've got both tablets, but only my TC1100 works. The TC1000 pen takes a AAAA battery, while the TC1100 has a Wacom digitizer, whose pen is powered inductively by the tablet, requiring no battery.

@davidlylejones

Жыл бұрын

@@RaduTek Right. I never used the TC1000 so I wasn’t certain about it. The 1100 also had an eraser than than lanyard attachment at the back end, right? Or am I misremembering?

@RaduTek

Жыл бұрын

@@davidlylejones No, both pens have a lanyard hook instead of an eraser.

The glue around the ribbon cables was not a factory option. My guess is that whomever was in there before you messed something up. ALSO, remove the cmos battery asap! They leak even worse than the old Varta barrel batteries. Lastly, if you have a chance, replace all of the small electrolytic caps in the screen itself. I used ceramics, and they work great!

Again you found a completely absurd and interesting device - great video! Thoroughly enjoyed watching your overview of this advanced tech from yesteryear!

That packaging is sweet looking! It gives off old IBM binder vibes.

@daemonspudguy

Ай бұрын

That's likely no coincidence because Dauphin contracted IBM to do the manufacturing.

An interesting thing about that processor as well is that it’s one of whose weird 386/486 hybrid chips. It has some 486 instructions (from my knowledge, not enough to be seen as a true 486) but uses the 386sx pinout.

@oldtwinsna8347

Жыл бұрын

these were common clip-on cpu upgrades marketed by Kingston and the like. While it wasn't as fast as a real 486, it gave a tremendous amount of computational speed over the stock 386.

@AaronOfMpls

Жыл бұрын

Cyrix did that again later with their 5x86, a 486/Pentium hybrid for 486 sockets. (Their actual Pentium I clone was the 6x86.)

@volvo09

Жыл бұрын

I've always heard of those slc's as "half 486's" I don't have one in my collection to compare, and never owned one.

@nep-nep6575

Жыл бұрын

@@volvo09 from my experience with the Cyrix 486DLC, another hybrid 486, they are faster than a standard 386DX, and have SOME 486 instructions, but it’s not enough to run 486-only applications.

By the way - if you ever have trouble finding AAAA batteries, cut open one of those square shaped 9V batteries and you'll likely find six of them inside

@oldguy9051

Жыл бұрын

Yes, that is one type of 9V battery construction. The other type use six small rectangular cells. If you have the right one with six AAAAs inside: Check the polarity of the contacts of the cell! I once had one where it was "reversed" as in: "the little knob end was the negative and the flat end was the positive"

I just love your channel, I really do. My inner Geek just eats up these videos about the tech I grew up with and around. Yes, I never had anything quite like this but I shared many of the same products you review. The worst part is that I am constantly scanning eBay for things I shouldn't be buying. But, a lot of the tech is now non-functional and they become idle 80's/90's plastic homages to my past. My inner Geek is provided with a lot of happiness coming through when I get to remember how it all worked back then. Hats off to this channel as always.

Ahh... I remember when I was an undergrad I picked out a Fujitsu Pentop out of my boss's junk box and messed with it. It was quite capable at the time and it boasted a 486 DX4 100Mhz processor and 8 megs of ram. It was bulky and I had to carry around a full sized keyboard with me to use it on the go, BUT it was very very useful since it could almost run all of the productivity tasks that my Pentium 3 desktop did at home. As a broke college kid, I couldn't afford a laptop, but the Point 510 was so interesting at the time that it always turned heads. The nice thing about the stylus was that it was completely passive, so if I didn't want to use it, I could use the cap of a ball point pen to navigate the windows 95 operating system. Complete with a port replicator for basically anything, I even remember doing some basic midi sequencing and music composition on it for class. I did try gaming on it but the LCD screen was a ghosting nightmare. It also had 2 PCMCIA slots in the top, one of which was populated with a nic / modem card.

Wow! I was really impressed by the integrated I/O under that sleeve. That's a pretty smart design for the time.

Great video, and I love that it's so much more than just "here's this thing". The history really adds to the viewing experience.

I am always amazed at the stuff you get from Free Geek! 👍

@volvo09

Жыл бұрын

Wish I had a place like that around. I'd visit regularly looking for neat old stuff.

@coreybabcock2023

Жыл бұрын

​@@volvo09 me too

@krad2520

Жыл бұрын

@@volvo09 Have one where I live. Can't speak for all locations but unless you're connected (or a KZreadr with a large following) you're not getting anything cool. The cool stuff doesn't even hit the (virtual, in our case, still not open since 2020) store floor.

@volvo09

Жыл бұрын

@@krad2520 I sort of figured that... Between searching for valuable items, and reserving cool stuff for friends or resale I wouldn't expect a ton of cool stuff, desirable stuff, to be available. But I'm sure "average" stuff is around? Right? Like if I wanted a 486 or an early pentium system, or to look through some average CRT monitors is that stuff around? Also, that's pretty lame that they STILL are virtual only... Wow.

@krad2520

Жыл бұрын

@@volvo09 At my location unfortunately no. All of those things you listed would not be made available. What *is* available however are countless Dell Optiplex systems from the early-to-mid 2010s, as well as laptops from that era. The only place that actually makes vintage systems available for public purchase is an electronics recycling center ~150 miles away (RE-PC in Seattle, WA) that isn't affiliated with Free Geek. Like I said though, it could just be my location. YMMV.

Wow I would have been all over a compact 486 like this from that time - this is very cool!

@volvo09

Жыл бұрын

I would have freaked out over this just because of the size, but then quickly been disappointed.

As always, I enjoyed this blast from the past. Thanks!

Oh man I remember working for HP down in their West Virginia office. We had SO many Orasists working in our office.

yes!!! you covered the hard drive! no one ever talks about it

Another great history lesson!

This is super cool! It is interesting to see what hasn't really changed in all this time.

Colin, Your content is so addictive

Steve Jobs and Apple sometime in the late 90's - 'We are watching Dauphin, we are learning, we will adapt!'

Such a cool device that I didn't even know existed. Thanks for making a video about it!

Cool i think only you and LGR have featured one of these. Really neat seeing a tablet from 92!

3:26 Yes, they make up 9 volt batteries. also a lenovo tablet i used to have used one for it's stylus too.

I barely even know about Dauphin, but I heard they worked with Fujifilm on touchscreen tech for businesses and eventually biotechnology which now Fujifilm is mostly focused on chemical engineering!

Quad A batteries are also used in Surface Pro 3 and above styli, at least the ones that aren't the flat ones they provide now :)

Nice video, I had a Dtr-2 back in the day it had a 50mhz chip... Would have been cool to show it connected up as a desktop to a monitor keyboard and mouse.

Atari did it all back in the 80's. STPad, STBook, STacy, Portfolio. The only thing missing of what we use today is an STPhone but I'm sure they had engineering sketches of something similar.

Love these quirky things. They deserve documentation

Years ago, I came across a British designed "portable computer" but it was more of a pda. Checked the manual and found that it was manufactured in the late 80s. It had a keyboard for typing and a notepad for recording texts. It also had an area at the back of the device for placing a phone. That was the magic of the device (it can transmit a fax signal to a remote fax machine).

I own the very very rare follow up to this product. its a pentium 233 version with a color screen called the Dauphin Orasis. they only sold a few hundred before Dauphin went bankrupt. Sadly it doesnt work.

@s3vR3x

Жыл бұрын

holt shit! you covered the orasis!!!! NO ONE knows about it. Im happy to lend it to you for a video. It doesnt work and its in VERY rough shape though.

@s3vR3x

Жыл бұрын

HA! That's my picture you used! that's my office I took that pic in with my orange rug! bahahaha

@ninjamaster3453

Жыл бұрын

@@s3vR3x Make it happen! Never heard of this one either.

@s3vR3x

Жыл бұрын

anything you can do to get this unit working would be very helpful

@s3vR3x

Жыл бұрын

@@GRudolf94 tried sending you my contact info to get in touch but youtube deletes it. can i contact you on facebook? i found you on there. I'd love to buy that board off you and restore this machine

It's a good thing, I think, that there is still so much interesting computer story to tell.

surface pens for the surface books have quad A batteries. This looks really cool and now I want one.

Steve jobs: "Think different." Dauphin: "Hold my 90 proof beer."

I learned of the Dauphin DTR-1 from LGR. Truly an interesting little machine.

they all look so cooool

Built in Ethernet in 1992. WOW!

The pen for my Surface Pro 6 uses a "AAAA" battery. I had to go to a local Auto Zone to buy new ones lol.

Damn! This thing for 1992? It must've been total fire back then.

I really miss those days when just about everything had a weird form factor, now it's just niche products like GPD.

I bought a couple Dauphin keyboards new in a box from a seller at a Hamfest back in the late 90s. He had a ton of NOS ones for some reason.

My dad had the Amstrad PPC640 shown at the beginning. It was great as it had a modem built in. I was downloading software from BBSes a lot. I once called into the Sierra On-Line BBS to download a demo. From the Netherlands where I lived! Must have cost my dad alot of money but he never complained to me about the phone bill.

Wow!!! So cool!!! It seems like all of our old tech had taken a crash diet since the and has slim down to the nice sleek and slim to what we have now. 😁💻❤️

You need a collab with LGD and MJD Retro! Awesome vids! 😊

4:05 An adjustable book stand should be good for that 6:57 Those current tablet cases that hold a tablet and keyboard are reminiscent of this

That tiny hard drive is sooo cute!!!

I remember years later tons of the Dauphin keyboards ended up on eBay for dirt cheap. They were so chintzy but were a really unique size for the time.

i'd love to see someone do a video on twinhead laptops. my pop was a software consultant starting in the mid 90s and his first work laptop was some twinhead model that was i believe a 486, or an early pentium. later he had another twinhead that was a pentium 233 iirc.

Came here to say AAAA cells are used in series in 9V batteries, but apparently that's not quite truen(9V batteries use LR61 cells, which are shorter).

One important thing that seems to be lacking is a method to calibrate the stylus to the touch screen. Like the later Palm devices have, where you aim the stylus at a target to calibrate the screen.

@volvo09

Жыл бұрын

It may not be an issue though, since windows navigation was fine. Palm devices had passive stylus' so it required initialization to sync with the screen. Maybe this had an "initialization after power loss" sequence we didn't see, but I didn't see calibration to be off. Especially since accuracy was mentioned in articles, back when precision wasn't even expected.

I once bought a used Fujitsu Pentium tablet at a garage sale with the intention of installing a lightweight Linux and using it for my D&D character sheets. Sadly, I couldn't find Linux drivers for the touchscreen.

I had a job in the mid 1990s working for a company that made software for Casinos. We looked at a color version of this for the pit manager to walk around with.

This is a amazing computer even by todays standards!

I would love to talk to any of the engineers in that project and ask them about that and compare with a modern 2 in 1.

I enjoy your videos very much, slightly off topic the word dauphin is French for dolphin and was the hereditary title of the ruler of the Dauphiné of Viennois. It is pronounced "doe-fan" in French, the term Dolphin comes from the similar sounding Dauphiné which is the name of a former province in Southeastern France and the aforementioned Dauphiné of Viennois.

I knew someone who had one of these, they loaned it to me in 2000 or so. The pen didn't work despite me replacing the batteries. The rest of the machine worked just fine, interesting device really.

That packaging is genius.

I have a Dell Inspiron 7573, and it's a few years old, and it has a pen, and it too uses a AAAA battery.

Cool video, you should try WinPad on the 486 tablet!

Interresting video. Funny that windows already has touchscreen drivers before windows 8. 👍🏼

hahaha bloody amazing :D Back around 2003 I think, I inherited an HP Compaq TC1100 tablet from my ebay e-waste seller boss (I handled the shipping while we sat around watching stupid internet videos, smoking weed or feeding out fat asses, I loved the job!) I loved it! it was SO fun playing Warcraft 2 on a tablet, even if it were dated,. there were not many tablets around then, so it still felt sweet XD Only thing that kinda ruined the deal was the passive matrix LCD that made almost any game look like a smeary mess D: . I managed though, and plus with a PCMCIA lan card I was able to get it online in limited ways for file transfers etc as I had no sort of dock or anything.. Old tablets are such a cool look back into what hardware makers envisioned the future to be / look like, and I love it! Srsly made me feel even more the cool dude than Joystick Johnny.. even though he kicked my ass at space cadet :|

I'm amazed a device like this was available in the early 90s.

@PhillyMJS

Жыл бұрын

The OS this thing ran was just something Microsoft crapped out solely to prevent a superior product from getting a foothold in the market, because Gates deemed it a threat to Windows. Look up GO Corporation and PenPoint OS. The CEO, Jerry Kaplan (whose name briefly appeared in this video) wrote a book about the experience of starting up the company, and a former Microsoftie named Marlin Eller wrote a book that has a chapter that corroborates Microsoft’s anticompetitive actions. I wish someone would find a working example of one of those GO devices, but they seem to be extremely rare.

The 180c required to melt plastic sounds like a faulty component to me. I’d consider getting it under a thermal camera and replacing components

Came for the Dauphin. Stayed for the component metahistory.

PS if you need AAAA batteries in a pinch, many brands of 9v batteries can be desconstructed into 6 AAAA batteries.

Didn't lgr do a video too ? And that let's talk about that batteries plus logo ! Wow I remember that style they did

@mxnjones

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, he did…a bit ago, though. That’s where I first learned of this little oddity.

I bought a Dauphin 386 laptop off a guy I knew in 2002 I plugged it in and it promptly puffed out blue smoke. 😅

It seems Dauphin was a little ahead of the times but slightly off in predicting what tech users wanted - touch screen yes, but not using a pen and not until about 15 years later.

I had a pen based computer back in the day. Was IBM branded and obtained for a liquidation ad in Computer Shopper……

fun fact, AAAAs are basically standard for active pens to this day

Hey, does anyone have any info on Crayon 386 2020 SP (10:42). Seems like an industrial equipment, but I found no info on google.

I wanted one of these as a kid after seeing it in PC Magazine but I don't remember it looking so chunky and cheap, lol

I actually had one of these for work - my company back then was weird, and would buy us any weird shit technology we told them would "help" us work faster. It was amazing, I promise. Everyone wanted one, when I stopped using paper notepads. Maybe I was just ahead of my time haha!

I came up agains one of those quad A battery devices the other day.

It was "desktop replacement" something like NUCs with a screen which you can use on the road if necessary ) So it wasn't very good as laptop and for a desktop replacement - too innovative for the time ) By the way, the port for a floppy also contains IDE pins and even the power, so there were plans to supply external HHDs

All of the Latitudes I've dailied for the last decade and a half have active styli that take AAAAs.

I'd have killed for one of those back in the day. (1986)

sweet cyber deck bro

Hey i have one of those somewhere in my stash. But my has an external floppy drive though

Ethernet in 1992 is crazy

@volvo09

Жыл бұрын

Being integrated is pretty rare, but 10baseT networking was very common, it was pretty much mandatory in large offices to access file shares through the likes of Novell and whatnot...

@CommodoreFan64

Жыл бұрын

​@@volvo09 Indeed, and by the late 90's it was 100 baseT networking, as I took 3 years of Computer Network Technologies classes in high school and in 98 when my school system built us new class rooms, and labs, part of our assignment was learning to run Cat 5 cable, and setting up 100baseT networking throughout the building, and making sure all the Novell networking on the Gateway, and Dell PC's we had worked.

@LucaMolteni84

Жыл бұрын

@@volvo09 I remember BNC connectors rather then RJ45

@Fasterpast

2 ай бұрын

Also Ethernet card is an option and it's very rare...

Absolutely great video,but never be a desktop replacement.

@CommodoreFan64

Жыл бұрын

For many people these days that's exactly what Laptops, Tablets, & Smartphones have become with how versatile, powerful, and affordable they have become. So I say never say never.

Interesting little CPU there, shame it's not really much faster than a 386SX, which that's a pin-compatible replacement for -- the Cyrix 486SLC has 2K of L1 cache, but still has the 16-bit external data bus and 24-bit address bus of the 386SX. I wonder how difficult it'd be to adapt a SD adapter to fit in the space of that KittyHawk drive? Not that you need it, particularly, but those drives are prone to failure, I've heard.

@Fasterpast

2 ай бұрын

You can replace it with 50MHz by the way ) And yes you can put SD with adapter without any problems

Flaws aside, this would be awesome for programming older Motorola radios installed in the car...

Can you archive the original floppy disks? I have a DTR-1 that I need to get working and it would be great to have images of the original media.

@ThisDoesNotCompute

Жыл бұрын

Go take a look at the Internet Archive ;-)

Well smaller keyboard might not be perfect but the worst thing is a ridiculously big keyboard, you keep on pressing wrong keys all the time when it's much wider than it should be in 14-15" chromebooks

I'm surprised that IBM didn't sell them their version of the 486 chip.

Tantalums don't leak but they do explode! But probably not these. I think it's more of an 80s era thing.

Would like to have seen it hooked up to a monitor keyboard and mouse.

Some friend showed me one of those twenty years ago... I took it apart and some of the parts pop around the house (: Shoud have kept it in one piece...

The Tablet before the Tablet!

@gamingguy9006

Жыл бұрын

The tablet concept existed since 1950

8:46 I watch this as I wear a Citizen Eco-Drive Promaster dive watch.

it was a time of interesting and non-standard solutions, now everything has come down to smartphones of the same type

Did you try to use a serial mouse? I wonder if it would have worked.

I was thinking, cool wavy design on that PSU... Oh no... Some kind of, fold-out stand for the main unit seems like an obvious thing to include.