Ron Schenone

IBM Wordpad Z50 – Time For A Resurrection

Posted by on Jun 8, 2007 | 11 Comments

It is time for a resurrection of the IBM Wordpad Z50. If you are not familiar with this mini-notepad here is an article I found back from Sept. 1999 that pretty much explains what the IBM Wordpad Z50 was all about here. So what brought this into mind?

While returning home from our trip to CT., we had a 4 hour lay over in Detroit waiting to catch our next flight. After having a bite to eat, looking at some shops and basically board to tears, I started doing some people watching. I noticed several different type of people who were true blue computer users, whether for personal or business use. They either were lugging around a 5 to 6 lb. laptop or were using some type of a PDA to communicate with. Since all major airports now offer wi-fi, answering email or surfing the net in airports has become common place.

Which brought back memories of when I had owned a IBM Wordpad Z50. The unit itself only weighed a few pounds and was easy to haul around. Also the keyboard, though smaller than a standard laptop keyboard, was still easy to use. The unit came with Windows CE which at the time was a mini-windows platform and included a suite of Microsoft Office products as well. IBM originally asked a hefty price tag of $1,000 per unit, but I was able to get a deal on a unit for $285.00 new. But it lacked many of the features we now have accepted as being standard like wi-fi, USB and so forth. There was no hard disk, and yu synchronized the wordpad with your desktop to store data.

But now with the advent of wi-fi, internet applications online ala Google, and other hardware resources such as USB thumb drives, this seems to me the perfect time to resurrect hardware similar to the Z50 but which would incorporate some of the latest hardware. Using Linux instead of Windows CE was another thought. Taking advantage of not only Google apps., but also Google gmail would seem another good idea. Everything could be used and stored online.

So what do you think? Is it time to resurrect the IBM Wordpad Z50 or similar? Or is there something already out there that wull do this and has a mini-keyboard and is light weight that you have used?

Something like this Asus laptop which was just introduced here is what I was thinking about.

Here is another I found from Toshiba here - should be interesting to see what their asking price will be.

Let me know. Comments welcome.

[tags]imb, wordpad z50, notepad, windows, linux, [/tags]

  • Scott King

    I don’t think the mini laptop/palmtop computers are going to catch on. Just check Ebay, a lot of them have not been used much. It seems the dropping prices of real laptops will keep them from being a big seller.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Scott,
    Thanks for the comments. Good point about laptop pricing. Especially when they are on sale. :-)
    Ron

  • http://www.goretsky.com/ Aryeh Goretsky

    Hello,

    Have you considered Palm’s forthcoming Foleo device? While not a lot of hard data is available about the device yet, it sounds very much like a new version of the WorkPad Z50 and might meet some of your needs.

    Regards,

    Aryeh Goretsky

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Aryeh,
    Thanks for dropping by. I will take a look at the Foleo as you suggest.
    I appreciate the information.
    Regards, Ron

  • clicclic

    I too am looking forward to resurrecting my Z50. I’ve been doing the usual Linux z50 google searches trying to find any recent developments in the Linux install world. What’s surprising is that you can now buy 2 GB CF cards for $20.00, which means dedicating a CF card to an entire (full) installation of NetBSD or a Linux flavor.

    But, sadly/scarily the CF card slot in a lot of Z50′s had mucho problems with read/write, so it’s a crapshoot whether this will work consistently.

    FWIW: The Foleo announcement is what started me thinking about my little crappy 640×480 passive matrix display z50…

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi clicclic,
    Let me know how this works out for you.
    Thanks, Ron

  • EEEnthusiast

    True, a CE-based device is tempting for always-on, easy sync with desktop PC, and incredible battery life. These days, with many mobile phones running CE-based Windows Mobile, the software situation is even better than it used to be.

    But the Asus EEE is now in stores and selling like hotcakes to the early-adopters (Palm Foleo died a quick death). You can build a 6-pound laptop for $500, or a 2-pound laptop for $1500. What’s revolutionary about the EEE is that it’s a 2-pound laptop that comes in at $300-400. Of course, lots of parts had to be stripped down severely to make the weight and price, but the most important thing is that it’s got an Intel x86 chip inside. That means it can run desktop software instead of stripped-down CE equivalents.

  • Paul

    Hi!
    I have had an ongoing “love affair” with the IBM Z50 ever since my employer bought several when they first came out and then decided a year later to replace them with full sized laptops. I was given 2 of them and have used them at home on my wireless network ever since. I bought the extended batteries for them on ebay and I can get about 10 hours of life from a charge even when I’m running a Cisco wireless card in the PCMCIA slot. I use the Terminal Server client to run a remoted desktop session from one of my Windows desktops on my wired network. Recently I was introduced to FreeBSD unix and the small size of the install got me thinking about BSD on the Z50. If you go to http://www.netbsd.org you can download NetBSD 3.1 complete install in and iso image thats about 150 MB. Im going to test it out with a 512 MB card I had lying around, and if the results are good, I will buy a 2 or 4 gb card. A previous poster said he had had spotty read/write results with the CF card slot, but I have never had any troubles. Maybe I lucked out and got two “good: units or he got a bad one. Who knows? Anyway, if you are interested, Im in info gathering mode now, but when I actually try the install, I could let you know my results.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Paul,
    Please do post your results. I would be interested to see how things turn out for you.

  • http://www.tux.org/~bball/z50/ willie

    been using my z50s for a number of years… compiled native app and libs to control a high-frequency communications receiver via a Targus serial i/o CF controller…

    good little word processor as the keyboard is all IBM! i use ispell and pico, which works great (you can yank the power and still save your work – pico [and GNU nano] will create a *.save file which can be recovered on power-up

    the z50 will be good forever, as it will also run for 5 hours off its 8 AA adapter (included free with the extended LiIon battery) – and you can still buy new batteries for the unit!

    you will need the extra 16MB module if you want to use X…

    long live the z50!

  • http://twitter.com/ThisFlat Roger Hoyt

    Thanks for sharing the blog post.  Very informative.  These should be pretty easy to figure out, but not a lot of people know where to start.