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From: bdahlen@zephyr.cair.du.edu (Robert L. Dahlen - U. of Denver USA=)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: Don't Panic - a dream
Message-ID: <1991Jun6.202118.25360@mercury.cair.du.edu>
Date: 6 Jun 91 20:21:18 GMT
References: <7444@acorn.co.uk>
Sender: news@mercury.cair.du.edu (netnews)
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Denver
Lines: 31

In article <7444@acorn.co.uk> asmith@acorn.co.uk (Andy Smith) writes:
>I once had a dream, It consisted mainly of taking a manufacturer,
>Encyclopaedea Brittanica, TimeLife books and Douglas Adams; then rolling
>them all together to work on a project. The project was a small hand held
>computer with a colour screen, the whole of the en. Brittanica, all of the
>TimeLife books, detailed maps of the world, spell
>checker/dictionary/thesorus and a powerfull calculator all built in.
>Inscribe 'Don't Panic' in large friendly letters on top, then market it as
>the first earth version of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy...
>
>Now I know more about what goes on, I know that this is not (yet)
>technically possible, we're talking 116Gbytes with real time image
>decompression and a 640 x 400 pixel 3" colour screen. However if HP were to
>take the 95LX case, install the 48S as a calculator, then using current
>4mbit EPROM/ROM technology put a compressed version of the Brittanica in
>with a dict/spell chk/theus (about 32Mbyte), they could produce something
>that would be very useful to many people. They may even be able to get
>Douglas Adams consent to inscribe 'Don't Panic' in large friendly letters on
>top...
>
>Any one think this would catch on?????

SONY thinks so.  See the Wall Street Journal 5-31-91 & 6-3-91 for articles
relating to the new DATA DISCMAN supposedly coming to a store near you 
around Christmas.

-- 
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Robert L. Dahlen - Director, Information Systems & Technology
University of Denver - Denver, Colorado 80208 (303) 871-4385
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