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LGR - The Atari Portfolio (Patreon)

Published:
2021-10-26 21:02:41
Edited:
2021-10-29 18:05:36
Imported:
2022-02

Content

https://youtu.be/rQwJk8E_xKE

Finally got this one finished! Been working on this off and on for over a month and it's nice to see it come together. So yeah, at long last it's Atari Portfolio time.

And what a nifty little device it is, particularly for 1989. Arguably the first palmtop PC, with an Intel 80C88A processor inside running at 4.92MHz, 128 whole kilobytes of RAM, and a proper DOS operating system capable of running (some) PC software alongside its built-in applications. And if you ask young John Connor, it even acts as a quick ATM hacking tool in a pinch.

I've got all kinds of palmtops and subnotebooks I'd like to cover someday, but the Portfolio is one I've always wanted to start with since it really kicked off that whole tiny realm of personal computing back in the day. Hope y'all enjoy the retrospective!

Files

Atari Portfolio - The $400 Palmtop PC from 1989!

Likely the world's first palmtop, the Atari Portfolio is a computer packing a 4.92MHz Intel 80C88A CPU, 128 whole kilobytes of RAM, and a proper DOS operating system capable of running (some) PC software alongside its built-in applications. And according to Terminator 2 it even acts as a quick ATM hacking tool! To quote young John Connor: "Easy money." ● LGR links: https://www.patreon.com/LazyGameReviews https://www.twitter.com/LazyGameReviews https://www.facebook.com/LazyGameReviews ● All background music licensed from: https://www.epidemicsound.com #LGR #Retro #Computers

Comments

Anonymous

wild stuff, cant believe all of the peripherals you could get with it crazy for those times!

Anonymous

What a great watch - I think all of us who caught T2 at that time were kinda in awe at the thing, and being able to see how just varied the library (especially from the user community's contributions) is rather neat. Really learned a lot about a killer device with this one!

Deckard Games

I have one of these myself. Including the oficial memory card and parallel port expansion.

Uncleawesome

Impressive amount of peripherals you got there 😀 Cool device!

Anonymous

Jenny....

Anonymous

Hey Clint, I actually know Brian Flores from Cognetic who you mentioned in the July unboxing. I just showed him the video and he loved it! His words “Wow!! That review was incredible! He actually did things I had no idea it could do. Lol” For what it’s worth he’s got boxes of them he’s working of fixing and plans on posting them up soon! Great job as always dude!

DFawlt Uzr

For as popular as the device is I find it really hard to believe that there isn't a Doom port for the Portfolio hahaha. Maybe someday? 😅

Novel

I had to pause the video when you mentioned the Birmingham NEC. One of the most antiquated buildings still not super refurbished in Birmingham. You could hold another 1989 computer show and it wouldn't look too out of place. OK, it may a little if the furry con was on next door.

Richard Bevan

I was really surprised about the Psion connection. I had a series 3 and series 5 but didn't realise the Atari was related to these through the ex-employees. It's a shame that DIP Research is no longer with us but who wants to walk around all the time with a small computer in their pocket?

Anonymous

I wonder why the screen has "blank" rows at the top and bottom? It seems like they could have fit 25% more text on there. I wonder if that's a limitation of the LCD or the computer itself?

Anonymous

Would you be arrested it you tried plugging it into an ATM and running T2 software. You know, just for testing purposes?

Pablo Rodriguez

When watching T2 back then it didn't even occur to me that this device was a thing that existed in real life. I thought it was something John had whipped up on his own. Then again, my knowledge on computer things back then was minimal.

Thomas Fuchs

I hope John Connor held on to that Portfolio to flip it on eBay after your video releases 😅

LazyGameReviews
>>70591151

Haha, I kinda love that about convention centers and conference locales. Same with so many government buildings, it's like stepping back in time.

LazyGameReviews
>>70564687

Thanks, Rob! I'm positive there's a ton of great stuff I missed too, the number of community software and hardware add-ons is vast

LazyGameReviews
>>70564647

Indeed, this would've been supremely cool thirty years ago! And to think only six or seven years prior to this, getting the same capabilities meant spending thousands of dollars on a machine that weighed 50 times as much

LazyGameReviews
>>70614455

Heh. Now taking bets on how long it takes for commenters to make an "Edward Furlong probably needs the cash" joke. For real though, I wonder what happened to the prop Portfolio!

LazyGameReviews
>>70608398

Never occurred to me either back then either! Too bad they didn't linger on the Atari logo a bit longer in the film to make it more apparent

Pietro Gagliardi

Wait, "Bee Cards"? Did Hudson Soft make these?! =P (Hudson did make a ROM card video game thing for the MSX called the "BeeCard" that can be seen as the precursor to the TurboGrafx-16 HuCards, but this is clearly something completely different)

LazyGameReviews
>>70631561

It's the same type of card developed by Hudson, yes! Though it was Mitsubishi that manufactured the cards, to my knowledge.

Ryan Helinski

Great work as always: alliteration, puns, nostalgia and dense information!

AtomicPurple64

Loved this! The whole idea of the handheld computer, stuff like this all the way up to the Palms of the early 2000s is just so cool to me. Do you think that someday you'll cover something from that weird PDA/computer hybrid era, running something like Windows CE? That'd be really neat to see!

LazyGameReviews
>>70680046

Absolutely! I've got two really fun Windows CE machines lined up to cover, hopefully next year.

CubicleNate

For what it's worth. I think this would still be fun to use today. Assuming the keyboard would be adequate enough for touch typing, this would be a nice, go-out-into-the-world, machine for writing. Also, perhaps, if it ran a version of Linux/Unix, I could do a lot in the terminal with it but probably NOT all that practical without some sort of wifi.

LazyGameReviews
>>70737351

Something like the Toshiba Libretto-series machines would be well suited to that task! Nice little keyboard, runs Linux if you want, and it'll support wifi via a compatible PCMCIA adapter. Love using my 50CT.

CubicleNate
>>70737351

That sounds perfect, actually. I have some old netbooks but the temptation is to use something modern. I'd like to just have something basic that forces me to focus. Thanks!