E-mate

• The article on Wikipedia here
• Here are the detailed specs and photo of an eMate 300
• Here is a review from 1997 just after the eMate came out.
• Gadgeteer did a retroactive review in 2002.

• Here's one guy trying to build his own $100 laptop based on an E-mate by adding hand-cranked power:

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/12/make_your_own_100_laptop.html

You folks should seriously consider getting ahold of an Emate and looking at it. They were great. I have one (but its touch screen has a problem, I don't know how much use it would be to you). I really, really, loved how noiseless it was, how it was never "waking up from sleep", I could immediately jot down new ideas, etc. I liked it better than any laptop at the time, and because of the features I mentioned (and huge battery life--huge), I would still use it for a lot of what I do if its technology had kept up with the times.

Get ahold of Jobs. He liked the emate, or so I heard. He might be interested in working with you on it or licensing or selling the technology or even donating it in some way. But even if you don't do that, get an emate and try it out to see a simple thing done right.

Why the OLPC isn't an eMate

The eMate has the form factor and power usage but not much else. As a commercial venture to do a similar thing to the OLPC (is that how one refers to the end result of this project?) it didn't work out so well. The processor was way slower than that what the OLPC is using, the screen was 100% mono and it used Apple's Newton OS. Starting from scratch also means no legacy stuff to deal with.

This page is here because developers can learn a lot by trying to use similar devices. The E-mate is older technology and is deficient in some ways, however it still has ideas that can be borrowed. You have to experience it as a package to understand this. Fortunately, they still come up on Ebay from time to time and the price is reasonable for someone who plans to spend some serious time with one.