Flipstart from Vulcan (Demo 2004

Flipstart from Vulcan (Demo 2004 Series - 9): This is a weird little device. It's essentially a Windows XP computer using thumb keyboard. The dimensions are (from memory, now 4″ x 6″ x 1″) It has a 30Gig disk, and fast chip. It also has built in Wi-Fi. It has a port replicator allowing full size keyboard and screen to be attached. The screen is very high resolution. All in all it looks attractive and kind of useful.

But the pitch was that this was a new approach to mobile computing, what you would come up with if you started with a blank slate , etc.

Watching the demo and then playing with it, I have to say that it didn't really live up to that claim. I heard this comment repeated by several show attendees. To me, it was, as David Roux used to say, " Just a PC with the air sucked out of it."

(Vulcan, of course, is Paul Allen's think tank; Paul Allen being to co- founder, with Bill Gates, of Microsoft. At least that's how I read the geneology.