You and me both! I've been using the EM-500 as a daily driver for 2 months and love it, but for me its time for a change I'm swapping to a Sony Clie TH55 with a video to follow....
Batteries are quite available for Cassiopeias, em-500 too. There are several chinese importers who sell the copies. About the LCD - yes, its great. It was transmissive LCD with great colors, but with the next devices the vendors moved to reflective and transflective ones, which are much more usable under the sunlight, but due to the fact that reflective ones used the front light (CCFL too) and transflective ones (with white leds as a backlight) used semireflective transflector their color saturation, contrast and brightness tended to be lower. Later, when the backlight efficiency increased, the vendors moved back to transmissive panels, because they are simpler to make and the brighter backlight let to use the handhelds under the sunlight.
Good to know about the batteries as I did struggle to find them for this model where they are readily available for most others. The older Aero 2100 had an early reflective TFT and it was terrible for indoor use, later true trans-reflective screens like the ones used on the Sony Clie range are amazing and give such good viewing angles too! You do need an impressive backlight for transmissive screens in direct sunlight I don't honestly think that was achieved until quite recently.
@@HandheldComputing Yeah, Sony CLiE and VAIO VGN-U50 (70/71/750/8) transflective LCDs were amazing (Sony own LCDs). Best at the time of appearance - high refresh rate, no flickering (DC LED regulation, not PWM), almost no gap between the sensor and LCD itself. These impressive backlights appeared in early 2010s. Smartphone market was in avant garde there
@@HandheldComputing Yep, Ipaq 4700, FS Loox 720, Nokia N90 (416*352 lcds). If possible, could you please check one thing. When you push the stylus, how deep does the sensory layer bend? On Clie, Ipaq4700 and any other non-Sony LCD device compared. Thank you!
@@kudryavchik So interestingly they are all very similar (clie old and newer, various PPCs and HPCs), the least was on the Palm Vx which had almost no movement and the most was on either the Psion 5Mx or the LG phenom probably due to the much larger resistive layer...
Love this machine. I bought this one back in 2001, I think. I passed it on to my brother-in-law some years later. It is a good-looking guy and a sturdy and quality design, pretty heavy.
Hmm seems like UA-cam has been screwing around with video notifications and I'm subscribed. I had to click again on the notification options to all again to get your videos notified. Now I have to backtrack from the last video I watched to the most recent ones. Anyways, happy to see your videos again. Happy New Year 2025.
Thank you for the heads up, I did not know that was a thing but speaking to Super Wife she says the same thing happened to her! Glad you are back and enjoyed this video! I might add a reminder to check notifications are on in the next video 😃
Nice video! The EM-500 was my first PocketPC. Imho still the nicest looking PPC ever made with a super nice screen! I didn't know about the shortcut for screen brightness even though I owned mine for 25 years now, good tip!
Glad you enjoyed the video @Karpour, it is a great pocket PC (especially as a 1st PPC!) and the colour versions look great! Ha ha its a great short cut, otherwise its settings, screen, backlight, adjust it then back to programs to open your app!!!!
Loved these Casio 'multimedia' PDAs, got my first 'job' writing for WinCE. In quotes because I got paid in PDAs and that was fine with me. Always annoyed me that the later OMAP models had a GPU that won't just accelerate 2D UI operations but conserves energy because graphics ops consumes more energy on CPU, but MS couldn't be bothered. The first iPhone didn't have a much faster GPU yet the wow factor was they actually used it. MS had the opportunity, squandered it.
Yes the GPU which seems to make things worse... At least thats what I found with the HTC advantage, video playback was better on the "lower spec" pocket Loox 720 as it didn't have a GPU 🤦♂️Most counter intuitive and sch a shame, as you say it could have been a game changer!
I recall having a Casio, Dell Axim, and one of Compaq's handhelds. I would get a newer one and sell the old one even year for a while, so I don't have any left. Except my first one, the Tandy version, which still works! These were so cool, and we thought that our co-workers were jealous because they were still using day-timers. Whether they were really jealous or not, well, that's up for debate.
@@HandheldComputing I think the Dell Axim was a favorite because it was boxier and easier to put in a pocket and to hold onto. The Compaq was more powerful, but it had an odd shape and didn't want to fit in a shirt pocket.
There's a huge advantage of sticking with ARM and that is the software availability. there's not a huge amount of MIPS software as it wasn't long into 2001 that MS insisted that the PPC platform move completely over to ARM CPU architecture
@HandheldComputing Oh no doubt the iPAQ was the winner and paved the way for every smartphone today. Remember at the time WinCE and it's apps where MIPS/SH3/ARM but certainly as a kid I had no idea which would win. I thought the iPAQ was ugly and expensive. The HP had the most beautiful metal finish, was elegant looking and the previous model was featured in a bond movie and HP went all in on cool James bond advertising which a little me was most impressed by. It's sad there was no cohesion for the devices. My Jornada didn't get to upgrade whereas the iPAQ did. I loved CE so much that I ended the era with the most elite Dell Axim that all together with GPS was near £800. Always wanted the palmtop Jornada but had an NEC mobile pro unfortunately
I've got the red and the blue versions. They're great. I found out recently that there was a yellow and a green one too in addition to the black. I'm not on the look out for these three to complete the collection at all! Is it USB or serial for the connection to the computer? I'd assume serial. I don't think either of mine came with the cable - I do have an IrDA adapter that I could use. I should check the box to see what mine came with. Love the video as always! Keep up the good work!
I do regret not holding out for a blue or red version as they look great. Yeah after I had made the video and was looking for images I saw a yellow version, you say they did a green too 🤔 Perhaps they are like Pokemon and you should catch 'em all 😁 The Cradle allows USB or serial connections so I have been able to sync using WMDC on Win11 via USB 😃
Wow, I never even saw the colored versions for sale. Though, it might be that they did not sell those in Europe. I know Japan had a few colors, did they sell them in those colors in the US as well?
I have an E-115, though the battery door is cracked and the screen is a bit cooked. Very nice feeling device though, gotta say the colourful designs of this model are very appealing.
The E-115 is a really solid device, it is a little slower but unless you are playing MP3s/video its not noticeable, in hindsight I do think I should have held out for a blue/red EM-500 though!
Great gadgets and Casio did make some quality products (calculators, PDAs and mini televisions). A Casio digital watch is all I could afford early 80's 😅
6:43 other way around - SD slots are compatible with MMC cards, MMC slots are not compatible with SD cards (SD cards are too big for MMC slots) edit: SD card is improved version of MMC card with backward compatibility for MMC cards in SD slots Probably some early devices with SD support only mentioned MMC as compatible for some reason and because of that SD can be use. (SD card has a limit 2GB, more than 2GB is SDHC standard most likely not compatible with old SD devices) Most old devices with MMC support are not compatible with SD cards, for example Nokia N-Gage and other Nokia phones. MMC cards are right now very expensive because they are rare and many old devices cannot use cheap SD cards.
The SD cards are thicker (marginally) but the MMC have an additional set of contacts on them which cannot be read by the SD slots... Certainly the MMC slot on the EM-500 is currently using an SD card and I cannot use the MMC cards I have in SD slots
@@HandheldComputing I did check this and this is 100% correct: every SD slot can use SD and MMC cards because compatibility with MMC is mandatatory for SD slots and specified by SD Card Association in SD Card Standart that every SD card use For example, page 24 of the "Physical Layer Simplified Specification" v1.01 Apr. 3 2004 "Compatibility to MultiMediaCard The SD Memory Card protocol is designed to be a super-set of the MultiMediaCard protocol1. The main additions are the wide bus option and the content protection support (refer to Table 3 for details). It is very easy to design host systems, capable of supporting both types of cards. The intent is to enable application designers to make use of the exiting install base of MultiMediaCard, unless the application cannot do without either the fast data transfer rate (wide bus), or content security" "The initializing procedure in the SD protocol is defined to successfully identify either a MultiMediaCard or a SD Memory Card, which ever is currently connected on the bus. After card detection, the host executes the initializing procedure and ends up with an identified card of a known type." "The physical dimension of the SD Memory Card is thicker than MultiMediaCard (2.1mm vs. 1.4mm; refer to Chapter 9) but it is defined in such a way that a MultiMediaCard can be inserted into SD Memory Card socket." www.sdcard.org/downloads/pls/archives/
@@prk55 well you do have me questioning it but the SD card spec wasn't finalised until 2000 and the MMC had already been around a while. The EM-500 is specifically an MMC card slot but I have an SD card in it... OK so I have just put an MMC into the N300 which has an "SD" slot and it worked fine so perhaps they are to some extent interchangeable 🤷♂go figure as that isn't what the internet told me 🤣🤣
The Palms tended to be a little cheaper but not by a lot but the hardware specs where massively lower in part due to the more efficient OS. I did a palm vs CE early years video, there will be a follow up soon ua-cam.com/video/ToPuOhkonmI/v-deo.htmlsi=2t4tzY3Sgi6aRE-M
I have always loved Casio's PDA designs! Its what makes them "Cassiopeia" if that makes sense. The same like Sony's Clie designs which made them stood out as PDAs.
They certainly added some "fun" when they set about the design for the EM-500, so much cooler than the E-1xx range. Sony have some incredible designs, there's a couple in my collection and they always had great screens 😍
@@HandheldComputing Do you think you'll be able to get your hands on their Pocket Viewer series? It's their PDA with their proprietary OS and I own one! But sadly the screen is faulty now... :( Check the link below. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_Viewer
I didn't go down the 'handheld' pc route, I had a laptop with a pcmcia card and sim. A whopping 50MB yes 50MB a month for £50 plus vat. I do love videos like this though as I can see what I was missing out on
Wowzers 50MB mobile data!!! Im shocked it was only £50+VAT! Did you have an ultramobile laptop or just a standard 12" 3KG kind of thing? in 2000 there would be nothing cooler than getting your Sony Vaio Picturebook or Toshiba libretto out on the train and surfing the net!!! 😎
@@henson2k They are available, its ID is JK-211LT pop it n google. You might be able to cautiously force some charge into it as long as its not swollen - thats whet I did to mine and I get 3 hours run time now
@@HandheldComputing In my E125 it's JK-210LT, just bought similar battery on Amazon, will let you know how long it will hold charge. At least backup battery is universal 2032!
@@henson2k Yes please do😃 FYI the EM-500 uses a different battery to the E1xx series. On the EM500 the contacts are on the short edge while the E1xx they are along the long edge
I remember really wanting the 115, or maybe the 125... But my broke 22yr old self couldn't afford it. I did end up getting a good price on a clearance BE300 though, as my first PDA. And thanks to the likes of exPod and others, it ended up quite a capable device until I replaced it with my first smartphone, an HTC Apache/VX6700.
They were expensive, the E115 was ~$500 when it came out adjusted for inflation its like a top end smartphone today!!! The BE300 is a bit of an oddity as it runs WinCE but with a shell that limits a lot of what it can do, although it did develop quite a following! The HTC Apache is nice, I had a later edition, the keys weren't too bad for thumb typing and it was a good size for a EDC
As CE became Windows Mobile the OS just became too sluggish, there were lots of cool phone/PDA combos made with WM5/6 they are cool but laggy! I would love an AMOLED screen for my Jornada 728 ❤️
Criminally underrated channel! Keep up the great work!
That is very kind of you ❤
Man I love gadgets like this.
You and me both! I've been using the EM-500 as a daily driver for 2 months and love it, but for me its time for a change I'm swapping to a Sony Clie TH55 with a video to follow....
Batteries are quite available for Cassiopeias, em-500 too. There are several chinese importers who sell the copies. About the LCD - yes, its great. It was transmissive LCD with great colors, but with the next devices the vendors moved to reflective and transflective ones, which are much more usable under the sunlight, but due to the fact that reflective ones used the front light (CCFL too) and transflective ones (with white leds as a backlight) used semireflective transflector their color saturation, contrast and brightness tended to be lower. Later, when the backlight efficiency increased, the vendors moved back to transmissive panels, because they are simpler to make and the brighter backlight let to use the handhelds under the sunlight.
Good to know about the batteries as I did struggle to find them for this model where they are readily available for most others. The older Aero 2100 had an early reflective TFT and it was terrible for indoor use, later true trans-reflective screens like the ones used on the Sony Clie range are amazing and give such good viewing angles too! You do need an impressive backlight for transmissive screens in direct sunlight I don't honestly think that was achieved until quite recently.
@@HandheldComputing Yeah, Sony CLiE and VAIO VGN-U50 (70/71/750/8) transflective LCDs were amazing (Sony own LCDs). Best at the time of appearance - high refresh rate, no flickering (DC LED regulation, not PWM), almost no gap between the sensor and LCD itself.
These impressive backlights appeared in early 2010s. Smartphone market was in avant garde there
@@kudryavchik Quite a few PPCs and PALM OS devices also utilised Sony screens, I still think they look great!
@@HandheldComputing Yep, Ipaq 4700, FS Loox 720, Nokia N90 (416*352 lcds). If possible, could you please check one thing. When you push the stylus, how deep does the sensory layer bend? On Clie, Ipaq4700 and any other non-Sony LCD device compared. Thank you!
@@kudryavchik So interestingly they are all very similar (clie old and newer, various PPCs and HPCs), the least was on the Palm Vx which had almost no movement and the most was on either the Psion 5Mx or the LG phenom probably due to the much larger resistive layer...
Love this machine. I bought this one back in 2001, I think. I passed it on to my brother-in-law some years later. It is a good-looking guy and a sturdy and quality design, pretty heavy.
They are sturdy, and have great build quality - it's a nice device to use. Also while it is heavy it was light for the time 😉
Hmm seems like UA-cam has been screwing around with video notifications and I'm subscribed. I had to click again on the notification options to all again to get your videos notified. Now I have to backtrack from the last video I watched to the most recent ones. Anyways, happy to see your videos again. Happy New Year 2025.
Thank you for the heads up, I did not know that was a thing but speaking to Super Wife she says the same thing happened to her! Glad you are back and enjoyed this video! I might add a reminder to check notifications are on in the next video 😃
Nice video! The EM-500 was my first PocketPC. Imho still the nicest looking PPC ever made with a super nice screen!
I didn't know about the shortcut for screen brightness even though I owned mine for 25 years now, good tip!
Glad you enjoyed the video @Karpour, it is a great pocket PC (especially as a 1st PPC!) and the colour versions look great! Ha ha its a great short cut, otherwise its settings, screen, backlight, adjust it then back to programs to open your app!!!!
How have I just discovered this channel?
Time to relive 3-Lib memories.
3-Lib was ace, I have done a few Psion videos but no where near enough!
Loved these Casio 'multimedia' PDAs, got my first 'job' writing for WinCE. In quotes because I got paid in PDAs and that was fine with me. Always annoyed me that the later OMAP models had a GPU that won't just accelerate 2D UI operations but conserves energy because graphics ops consumes more energy on CPU, but MS couldn't be bothered. The first iPhone didn't have a much faster GPU yet the wow factor was they actually used it. MS had the opportunity, squandered it.
Yes the GPU which seems to make things worse... At least thats what I found with the HTC advantage, video playback was better on the "lower spec" pocket Loox 720 as it didn't have a GPU 🤦♂️Most counter intuitive and sch a shame, as you say it could have been a game changer!
a good video from youtube recommendations, how unusual... subscribed
Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the sub!
I recall having a Casio, Dell Axim, and one of Compaq's handhelds. I would get a newer one and sell the old one even year for a while, so I don't have any left. Except my first one, the Tandy version, which still works! These were so cool, and we thought that our co-workers were jealous because they were still using day-timers. Whether they were really jealous or not, well, that's up for debate.
I went through a lot of handhelds in a similar way through my late teens and 20's, they were defiantly jealous!!! 😉
Do you have a favourite handheld?
@@HandheldComputing I think the Dell Axim was a favorite because it was boxier and easier to put in a pocket and to hold onto. The Compaq was more powerful, but it had an odd shape and didn't want to fit in a shirt pocket.
@@KarlWitsman Sometimes being able to easily carry is far more important than the specs! Is that the Axim X30? very square!
@ It may very well have been that model. It's been so many years now that I cannot recall.
yes to casio wrist camera video!!
I think so! Its a great bit of tech
I adored my Jornada 548 but was interested in a MIPS powered Cassiopeia. I liked the logo, packaging and focus on multimedia
There's a huge advantage of sticking with ARM and that is the software availability. there's not a huge amount of MIPS software as it wasn't long into 2001 that MS insisted that the PPC platform move completely over to ARM CPU architecture
@HandheldComputing Oh no doubt the iPAQ was the winner and paved the way for every smartphone today. Remember at the time WinCE and it's apps where MIPS/SH3/ARM but certainly as a kid I had no idea which would win. I thought the iPAQ was ugly and expensive. The HP had the most beautiful metal finish, was elegant looking and the previous model was featured in a bond movie and HP went all in on cool James bond advertising which a little me was most impressed by. It's sad there was no cohesion for the devices. My Jornada didn't get to upgrade whereas the iPAQ did. I loved CE so much that I ended the era with the most elite Dell Axim that all together with GPS was near £800. Always wanted the palmtop Jornada but had an NEC mobile pro unfortunately
I've got the red and the blue versions. They're great. I found out recently that there was a yellow and a green one too in addition to the black. I'm not on the look out for these three to complete the collection at all! Is it USB or serial for the connection to the computer? I'd assume serial. I don't think either of mine came with the cable - I do have an IrDA adapter that I could use. I should check the box to see what mine came with. Love the video as always! Keep up the good work!
I do regret not holding out for a blue or red version as they look great. Yeah after I had made the video and was looking for images I saw a yellow version, you say they did a green too 🤔 Perhaps they are like Pokemon and you should catch 'em all 😁
The Cradle allows USB or serial connections so I have been able to sync using WMDC on Win11 via USB 😃
Wow, I never even saw the colored versions for sale. Though, it might be that they did not sell those in Europe. I know Japan had a few colors, did they sell them in those colors in the US as well?
I did a lot of european Maps by exporting them from MS Auto Route Express on Windows.
great video
Glad you enjoyed it 😃
I have an E-115, though the battery door is cracked and the screen is a bit cooked. Very nice feeling device though, gotta say the colourful designs of this model are very appealing.
The E-115 is a really solid device, it is a little slower but unless you are playing MP3s/video its not noticeable, in hindsight I do think I should have held out for a blue/red EM-500 though!
We have come full circle looks like my old palm pilot.
We know that all handhelds eventually become a glass rectangle with very few buttons which is a real shame 🙄
Great gadgets and Casio did make some quality products (calculators, PDAs and mini televisions). A Casio digital watch is all I could afford early 80's 😅
I was fortunate enough to have a Casio CALCULATOR watch when I was at Junior School 😁, so cool 😎
6:43 other way around - SD slots are compatible with MMC cards, MMC slots are not compatible with SD cards (SD cards are too big for MMC slots)
edit:
SD card is improved version of MMC card with backward compatibility for MMC cards in SD slots
Probably some early devices with SD support only mentioned MMC as compatible for some reason and because of that SD can be use.
(SD card has a limit 2GB, more than 2GB is SDHC standard most likely not compatible with old SD devices)
Most old devices with MMC support are not compatible with SD cards, for example Nokia N-Gage and other Nokia phones.
MMC cards are right now very expensive because they are rare and many old devices cannot use cheap SD cards.
The SD cards are thicker (marginally) but the MMC have an additional set of contacts on them which cannot be read by the SD slots...
Certainly the MMC slot on the EM-500 is currently using an SD card and I cannot use the MMC cards I have in SD slots
@HandheldComputing Are you sure, my experience is the exact opposite but I have not used a Casio
@@HandheldComputing I did check this and this is 100% correct: every SD slot can use SD and MMC cards because compatibility with MMC is mandatatory for SD slots and specified by SD Card Association in SD Card Standart that every SD card use
For example, page 24 of the "Physical Layer Simplified Specification" v1.01 Apr. 3 2004
"Compatibility to MultiMediaCard
The SD Memory Card protocol is designed to be a super-set of the MultiMediaCard protocol1. The main additions are the wide bus option and the content protection support (refer to Table 3 for details). It is very easy to design host systems, capable of supporting both types of cards. The intent is to enable application designers to make use of the exiting install base of MultiMediaCard, unless the application cannot do without either the fast data transfer rate (wide bus), or content security"
"The initializing procedure in the SD protocol is defined to successfully identify either a MultiMediaCard or a SD Memory Card, which ever is currently connected on the bus. After card detection, the host executes the initializing procedure and ends up with an identified card of a known type."
"The physical dimension of the SD Memory Card is thicker than MultiMediaCard (2.1mm vs. 1.4mm; refer to Chapter 9) but it is defined in such a way that a MultiMediaCard can be inserted into SD Memory Card socket."
www.sdcard.org/downloads/pls/archives/
@@HandheldComputing Maybe You can make a video about history, differences and compatibility of MMC and SD cards?
@@prk55 well you do have me questioning it but the SD card spec wasn't finalised until 2000 and the MMC had already been around a while. The EM-500 is specifically an MMC card slot but I have an SD card in it...
OK so I have just put an MMC into the N300 which has an "SD" slot and it worked fine so perhaps they are to some extent interchangeable 🤷♂go figure as that isn't what the internet told me 🤣🤣
Katya’s voice in my head lol!
You mean the drag queen? If only you knew 😉
it's interesting how much more powerful the hardware was for windows ce than for palm devices. i think palm devices were less expensive too (?)
The Palms tended to be a little cheaper but not by a lot but the hardware specs where massively lower in part due to the more efficient OS.
I did a palm vs CE early years video, there will be a follow up soon
ua-cam.com/video/ToPuOhkonmI/v-deo.htmlsi=2t4tzY3Sgi6aRE-M
I have always loved Casio's PDA designs! Its what makes them "Cassiopeia" if that makes sense. The same like Sony's Clie designs which made them stood out as PDAs.
They certainly added some "fun" when they set about the design for the EM-500, so much cooler than the E-1xx range. Sony have some incredible designs, there's a couple in my collection and they always had great screens 😍
@@HandheldComputing Do you think you'll be able to get your hands on their Pocket Viewer series? It's their PDA with their proprietary OS and I own one! But sadly the screen is faulty now... :( Check the link below.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_Viewer
I didn't go down the 'handheld' pc route, I had a laptop with a pcmcia card and sim.
A whopping 50MB yes 50MB a month for £50 plus vat.
I do love videos like this though as I can see what I was missing out on
Wowzers 50MB mobile data!!! Im shocked it was only £50+VAT! Did you have an ultramobile laptop or just a standard 12" 3KG kind of thing? in 2000 there would be nothing cooler than getting your Sony Vaio Picturebook or Toshiba libretto out on the train and surfing the net!!! 😎
I always wanted this one. I ended up buying an HP Jornada which wasn’t as good
I still have E125 in my drawer
The last MIPS powered Casio, all ARM CPUs after that. Its a great device you should dust it off and have a play 😉
@@HandheldComputing I think main battery died (25 years old after all). Is it easy to find replacement these days?
@@henson2k They are available, its ID is JK-211LT pop it n google. You might be able to cautiously force some charge into it as long as its not swollen - thats whet I did to mine and I get 3 hours run time now
@@HandheldComputing In my E125 it's JK-210LT, just bought similar battery on Amazon, will let you know how long it will hold charge. At least backup battery is universal 2032!
@@henson2k Yes please do😃
FYI the EM-500 uses a different battery to the E1xx series. On the EM500 the contacts are on the short edge while the E1xx they are along the long edge
I remember really wanting the 115, or maybe the 125... But my broke 22yr old self couldn't afford it. I did end up getting a good price on a clearance BE300 though, as my first PDA. And thanks to the likes of exPod and others, it ended up quite a capable device until I replaced it with my first smartphone, an HTC Apache/VX6700.
They were expensive, the E115 was ~$500 when it came out adjusted for inflation its like a top end smartphone today!!! The BE300 is a bit of an oddity as it runs WinCE but with a shell that limits a lot of what it can do, although it did develop quite a following!
The HTC Apache is nice, I had a later edition, the keys weren't too bad for thumb typing and it was a good size for a EDC
Using one of these offline for privacy 😁
Absolutely, pop a password on and its about as safe as it gets! I'm pretty sure you can get an encrypted wallet for storing passwords etc too
Windows mobile had they went this route with an AMOLED would have been able to compete with both Android & iOS
As CE became Windows Mobile the OS just became too sluggish, there were lots of cool phone/PDA combos made with WM5/6 they are cool but laggy! I would love an AMOLED screen for my Jornada 728 ❤️
Ok, But it runs "" Crisys"" ???.....;)
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 no but like every electronic device ever conceived it can run Doom 😉😉