[upbeat portable music plays] Greetings and welcome to another palm-sized
LGR Thing! This time focusing on the lovely little Atari Portfolio. It might look like a
standard digital organizer at first glance, but once you boot it up and poke around, it’s
apparent this thing is a legit palmtop computer. Inside is an Intel 80C88A processor running at
4.92MHz and 128 whole kilobytes of RAM. And it’s also got a proper DOS operating system capable of
running PC software, either stored internally or on memory cards, right alongside its built-in
applications. And it even acts as a quick ATM hacking tool when the mood strikes! Or at least it
does in Terminator 2 if you’re young John Connor, with its appearance in that movie being the
Portfolio’s most famous claim to pop cultural fame. In real life though, the “Pofo” as it was
known to its fans, was a machine released in 1989, being revealed at that year’s Summer Consumer
Electronics Show in Chicago. And it had a suggested price of just $399.95 when it hit store
shelves, making it surprisingly low cost compared to the competition. Not that there was much
competition, since the Atari Portfolio was the only thing like it on the market for a short time,
often being credited as the world’s first “palmtop computer.” Which, eh that’s more or less true but
we’ll get to that. First though I wanna give a huge thanks to LGR viewer Brent for donating this
particular Pofo, along with letting me borrow a pile of add-ons, peripherals, and software for
us to take a look at in this episode. Cuz yeah, as legendary as this miniature marvel may be
among retro collectors, there are surprisingly few detailed videos about it, so I’m honored to have
the chance to cover it on LGR. So, throughout the '80s you had desktops, luggables, laptops, and finally palmtops, with a few stops in between for notepad-sized portables and such. But it was that
final “palmtop” category that so many late '80s companies were dying to crack, that futuristic
idea of a PC-compatible in the palm of your hand. Pocket PCs, palmtops, whatever you wanted to call
them. Technology pundits were convinced they were the Next Big Thing™. And sure, once they became
a reality reactions were mixed, with each device clearly compromising usability for portability. But whatever! They were exciting, and new! And DIP Research was one of the first companies
going all-in on the idea with the DIP Pocket PC. Look familiar? Yeah this was also revealed in
1989, in February at the “Which Computer?” show at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre,
four months prior to the Portfolio. And that’s because Atari was simply a licensee of the design,
with the initial hardware crafted by Distributed Information Processing Limited, or DIP for short.
They were founded in Guildford, Surrey in the UK back in 1985, providing sales and support for
existing pocket computers, and began developing their own machine in 1986. And they had the skills
to make it happen due to their past work at Psion, with DIP’s founder, managing director, and
development director all having worked there previously. Psion was behind the Psion Organiser,
a pocket computer from 1984 described at the time as an “electronic Filofax.” As impressive
as it was as a handheld computer though, the Psion wasn’t IBM PC-compatible and didn’t run DOS.
Same goes for the Sharp Wizard and the Casio BOSS, contemporary devices that were quote “computer
compatible,” but only in the sense that they worked alongside a PC by transferring data between
systems. They weren’t PC-compatibles on their own. And so the folks at DIP made the palmtop
dream a reality with the Pocket PC. The plan was to license out their
design to any interested parties, of which Atari was the first and only company to
take them up on it. And its relatively low price made it a frequent headliner, especially compared
to its most immediate competitor, The Poqet PC by Poqet Computer Corporation. It often saw
direct comparisons to the Portfolio in the media due to the form factor, though it wasn’t the
fairest fight since it had a list price of $2000, due to its far better specs both inside and out.
So, since the Poqet PC was roughly five times more costly and didn’t come out until months after
the Portfolio, Atari was happy to claim victory of having the first palmtop ever. They even
offered a full 30-day “try-me-free” guarantee, stating you could send it back no questions asked
if you didn’t like it. Such confidence. Was it merited, or just marketing hype capitalizing on
the novelty of its size? Well, let’s power it on, dive into its capabilities and find out! [Portfolio hinge squeaks] [startup sound of... no sound at all] Ah, the simplicity of no cooling fans or
spinning disk media. Just silent computing, powered on by pressing any button at all. Right
so! This particular Portfolio we have here, model HPC-004, is one of the earlier ones with
ROM version 1.056. Models ranged from 003 to 011 with differing ROMs and minor hardware
tweaks, but externally they’re all about the same. It measures 7.5”×4”×1.25” folded
up, pretty close in size to a VHS tape. And weighs just 1 lb 3 ounces with batteries
installed. On that note it takes three standard AA batteries to do its thing, which were said
to last up to 6 to 8 weeks if used sparingly. There’s also an optional 6V AC adapter of course,
which plugs in over on the left-hand side corner. Something good to keep connected when replacing
those AAs since there’s no other battery inside. And being that the RAM storage needs power to
retain data, you’ll lose all your files saved to RAM without power. Not that you’ve got much to
lose, since there’s only 128 kilobytes of memory to work with, which can be partitioned to provide
either more system memory or more file storage. And of course, the operating system and bundled
applications were stored in non-erasable ROM, a whopping 256 kilobytes worth. More than enough
considering its stripped-down OS, known as DIP DOS 2.11, taking up only 15 kilobytes of space.
And while it’s functionally based on MS-DOS 2.11, it’s not 100% compatible, despite being
sold as an MS-DOS machine back in the day, or even IBM compatible in some cases. Neither
of which is entirely true. No offense to Grandma’s Music & Sound, but these ads were a bit
misleading. Because while it shares many of the same system commands as MS-DOS, its compatibility
is a real mixed bag, with half the DOS programs I’ve tried barely being usable and the other half
not working at all. And you can’t install a real version of MS-DOS either, the Portfolio is stuck
with DIP DOS 2.11. That being said you do get a handy handful of helpful software built into the
rest of the ROM: an address book, calculator, diary, text editor, worksheet software, and a
setup program. They’re all pretty self explanatory and about as barebones as you’d expect for being
such tiny palmtop programs, but the spiral-bound 250-page instruction manual goes into plenty of
detail about each application regardless. Like how the worksheet program supports Lotus 1-2-3
files, a huge deal at the time since who didn’t want spreadsheets on the go? And the multifunction
calculator features five distinct memory banks, just in case you need five separate instances of
calculating calculation. And there’s a clipboard resident in memory at all times, letting you copy
and paste information from one app to the other seamlessly. Fancy stuff. Interacting with all
this is accomplished using the QWERTY keyboard, consisting of 63 tiny plastic keys layered over
a mushy membrane. Other than the arrow keys the layout is pretty standard for a PC clone,
with many keys performing multiple functions in conjunction with the Function and Atari shortcut
keys in the bottom left. This is also how you power the Portfolio off, or more accurately, into
a low-power sleep mode. And yeah, despite the tiny keys it’s actually quite usable, though they’re
clearly not ideal. It really works best when held up in both hands where you can more easily use
your thumbs to smoosh away at each character. And you do at least get some terminal-style
audible click sounds verifying key presses. [keys tapping mixed with artificial key clicks] This handheld
position also allows you to get a better view of the LCD, which is a non-backlit
monochrome panel measuring 4.5×1 5/8 inches. Capable of displaying 40 columns by 8 rows of text
at once, with a 240x64 pixel resolution. Quite low even compared to CGA, something the HD61830 video
controller is not capable of running by the way, being optimized for character-based software. It
does at least have some built-in sound capability, with a tiny Dual Tone Multi Frequency speaker
capable of outputting tones between 622 and 2,489Hz. Conveniently falling within
the same range as touch tone telephones, so you can not only use the address book app to
store phone numbers, but actually speed dial them too by holding it up to a telephone handset. [touch tone dialer dialing] Then over on the left-hand side is a card slot accepting credit
card-sized memory cards, sometimes called Bee Cards, providing you with some quick removable
storage. These were also used in Korg and Roland effects processors and synthesizers, and typically
came in three capacities: 32K cards costing $80, 64K for $130, and 128K for 200 bucks. And
each one comes with its own battery, a CR2016, so it’ll retain data regardless of whether
or not it’s plugged into the computer. Also amusing is that memory cards show up as
an A: drive in the OS. There were no Portfolio floppy drives available, unless you could
find a third party 3.5” serial floppy drive. On a related note, the Portfolio also does not
have built-in serial or parallel ports. But over on the right hand side is an expansion interface,
with an edge connector supporting things like serial and parallel port expansions. So yeah,
if you wanna connect say, a dot matrix printer, then go right ahead! We now have what was perhaps
the world’s smallest word processor of 1989! Not counting the printer itself. The expansion
interface also allows for memory expansion add-ons like the Memory Expander Plus, adding another
256K of main memory and/or RAM disk capacity. This is also where you gain access to the B:
drive, with another memory card slot around back acting as a secondary interface. These
modules also have a passthrough connection on the opposite side, allowing for stackable
expansions similar to the PCjr’s sidecars. And this is how you can max out the Portfolio with
640K of conventional memory, with two 256K modules added to the machine’s built-in 128. There was
also a dial-up modem expansion that was available, and even a MIDI interface, letting you
output tracks to a MIDI playback device. As for getting files on and off the machine
itself, you’ve got a few options. One is using the aforementioned serial or parallel expansions
alongside a file transfer program connected to another PC, like the aptly-named FT application
included with DIP DOS. Then there are the memory cards used in lieu of floppies, but how do you
write to them outside the Portfolio? Well Atari also sold the PC Card Drive interface,
a somewhat confusing name since it’s not compatible with the PC Card standard, but it’s
fine since it predates that by about a year. Anyway whatcha get here is an ISA card, breakout
box, interface cable, and MS-DOS drivers that allow you use Portfolio memory cards on a PC. And
it’s incredibly simple to use, with the drivers loading on startup and the card showing up as
a standard drive with its own assigned letter. You can then copy files on and off the card within
DOS or Windows, just like any other removable disk drive. Sweet. The final option for loading things
came by purchasing boxed software, and yeah, there were a handful of Portfolio-exclusive programs
released. They came on their own memory cards, this time with non-volatile memory so there’s
no need for coin cell batteries. The majority of these came from Atari themselves, like PowerBASIC
for programming basically powerful programs, and the File Manager, offering a much-appreciated
shell for managing all your data. Along with an interactive tutorial for learning the ins and
outs of using the Portfolio without diving into the manual, very useful. There was also good ol'
Chess, perhaps the only standalone game officially sold for the platform. It’s chess, it’s nifty
and chess-like, and it’s exactly the kinda game that doesn’t suck on a machine this small. Even a
few third party titles were sold for the system, like Fastpay here, a payroll management program
for small businesses. This has gotta be one of the rarest cards released for the platform, at
least I assume since I can’t imagine folks were clamoring to keep track of employee records using
the Portfolio’s teeny little keyboard and display. Finally, there’s the MS-DOS side of the equation,
with the countless PC programs that theoretically might run if the Portfolio’s playing nicely. That
is a big ‘if’ though, actual compatibility is severely limited due to hardware differences, its
bespoke version of DOS, highly limited graphics, and 128K of RAM. So if it’s a DOS program that
runs within those parameters, and doesn’t rely on directly addressing an IBM BIOS, then you might
get lucky! But those are few and far between, so ideally you’ll wanna seek out software
that’s specially adapted for Portfolio usage. You’re not gonna play Doom on here in other words,
or most any other standard IBM PC program really. With the majority of them either running with
garbage on-screen, freezing up the whole system, or refusing to run at all. And this is with
greater compatibility enabled in the setup menu, which the manual tells you to do anytime you’re
running standard PC software. Thankfully there were hundreds of purpose-built apps programmed by
the Portfolio community, and yeah, the homebrew scene was highly active for a number of years and
much of it’s still readily available online. Like, one of the first things any Portfolio owner does
is run the obvious “T2_PIN” program, letting you indulge the fantasy of gaining easy money from an
ATM to go play some arcade games at the local mall before being hunted by a weird liquid metal dude.
Lots of games were developed and released for free as well, although none of them are particularly
deep. But that’s fine, this is a 5MHz system from 1989 with 128K of RAM and a 40-column screen, what
do you expect. The limitations make exploring its software catalog fascinating, with all kinds of
clever workarounds and technical solutions being made to pull off the best experiences possible
on such deficient hardware. Like this intriguing version of Tetris, designed for tilting the
machine on its side so you have more viewing area to drop pieces into place in extra tall tate
mode. And naturally, card games, gambling games, puzzle and board games are all well-suited here,
since they don’t require much speed or memory, and are easily controlled using that lovably
limited keyboard. And many of the community-made programs are novelties showing off some aspect of
the system, like this one that displays animated lips because hey, moving pixel graphics are neat,
especially on the humble Portfolio. Or this one that bangs away at the internal speaker to
produce halfway-believable human speech. - [speaker] “Help! Somebody get me out of here!” “I’m trapped in this computer!”
”Help! Somebody!” And that’s about it for this trek into the
Atari Portfolio! And I think it’s wonderful for the time it came out. The Pofo’s combination
of small size, low price, and familiar DOS-like OS make it easy to see why it remained as popular
as it did, as long as it did. It wasn’t actually discontinued until 1993, the same year Atari’s ST
and Falcon line of computers got canned and the Jaguar console was introduced. Oh Atari, they
tried. As for DIP Limited, they actually did make a mildly-improved successor of sorts,
a machine Sharp sold as the PC-3000 in 1991. And while DIP wanted to build a 386-based
palmtop as well, the company was sold to Phoenix Technologies in 1994 before that ever got
off the ground. Kinda sad considering how popular palmtops and handheld computers got throughout the
90s, most notably the HP LX-series. Seriously, if you want a proper PC palmtop from the time period,
check out the 95LX that runs real MS-DOS 3.3. Or even better, the superb 200LX running MS-DOS 5,
with a full CGA resolution display and a solid one or more megabytes of RAM. Not to mention all the
other folding machines that followed. Even modern handhelds and folio devices, like the GPD Win Max
and Microsoft Surface Duo, feel as if they owe a debt to the groundwork laid by DIP Limited and the
Atari Portfolio. So while it may not be the most useful thing as a standalone personal computer
running DOS, the Portfolio is still wildly cool in my view, and worth a respectful look back into the
world of palmtop computing over three decades ago. [jazzy outro tunes] And if you enjoyed this retrospective then do
check out some of my others. I love covering tiny PCs, and vintage computing silliness in general,
so stick around for the stuff I’ve got coming up or perhaps wander into the deep back catalog of
LGR Things. And as always, thank you for watching!
