Gary McGovern wrote:
> HPs research into reusable paper gave me the idea that a computerised
> version couldn't be that far away. A computerised pen based version with
> its own OS that could make the 150 hard pages into into infinite pages.

The way to do it would be to spiral bind, say, three or four 
(double-sided) pages so you could just keep flipping as if it were 
infinitely-bound spiral pages, but still be able to easily flip/glance 
to the previous/next few pages without swinging a page all the way around.

> As I'm a user and they are my requirements, I couldn't be wrong could I ?

Sure!

Actually, I always liked the pictures of the Dynabook with the idea that 
you would have a single tablet with keyboard and screen in a fixed 
plane, so there was no hinge, etc. but it was still a reasonable size. 
Laptops (especially now) get so large due to hard drives, removable 
media, pointing devices, etc. that though they may be comfortable, 
portable, etc., they lose that ease of sharing and informality that I 
think some of the older laptops had, and it appears would have made the 
Dynabook stand out.

I would love to have something physically like the Dynabook with maybe a 
StrongARM or XScale processor, maybe a touch-screen or stylus and an 
8-12 hour battery life.  Even monochrome would be OK (though hard to 
sell).  Skip the removable media and maybe add an Ethernet or WiFi 
adapter, or maybe skip internal storage altogether and use a pair of PC 
Card slots so you could do Flash or MicroDrive storage and a 
wired/wireless network card if need be.  Keep costs down and make it 
easier to upgrade/modify down the road.

For that matter, you could put the processor and some other vital stuff 
on a PC/104 or some other standard embedded card and make it really easy 
to change your mind later without redesigning/remanufacturing the entire 
thing.

I think the key would be to look at (or market) it not necessarily as a 
general-purpose computer but as a way to share and carry your ideas and 
tinker in a comfortable environment, without being limited to something 
as task-oriented as a Palm.  Like with the Dynabook, it's more something 
you'd use to explore more than something you'd use to work.

Just because you wouldn't climb K2 with a rucksack doesn't mean a 
rucksack isn't useful.  We have the computing equivalent of base camps, 
climbing/hiking backpacks, and wallets, but no rucksacks/knapsacks.

Imagine sending your kid to school with a 5,000 in^3 / 80,000 cm^3 
backpack every day.

(I love analogies.)

(Though still laptop form-factor, I've nearly purchased an IBM WorkPad 
z50 a few times just for the battery life.)

-Jack

P.S. (big tangent)

We've come to look at the markets as if they're an all-or-nothing 
concept.  "When will Linux dominate the desktop?"  "Will Apple ever gain 
more than 5% market share?"  Give me a 1% market share over 100 years 
and I'll show you some happy employees (though maybe not if you have 
investors clamoring for ever-increasing profit margins).  In general, 
we've lost what it means to be a niche market, and I think relatedly 
lost what it means to be successful.  Starbucks is successful because 
it's gone international, yet the corner coffee hut isn't -- even though 
it's been successfully serving coffee to a loyal clientelle since before 
the americanization of the cappuccino.  Krispy Kreme is a good bet but 
an 80-year-old bagelry isn't?  I say if you've paid the salaries and the 
bills for a company of a hundred employees for sixty years, you're more 
successful than a dot-bomb that made three million a month for six 
months (in investor dollars, anyway).

Something like 95% of all restaurants eventually fail, but no one seems 
to think a restaurant is a bad idea.

(Scary to imagine a restaurant that doesn't fail.  Imagine McDonald's in 
100,000 years.)

I think we need to start talking about comfortable sustainability rather 
than profitability before our (global) economy really goes bust.  And I 
say this in hopes that someone brave and knowledgeable sits down and 
does the math and says, hey, there's (not great but) comfortable money 
to be had catering to group x (where x might be, oh, a bunch of 
Squeakers), and I've been thinking about retirement....