Those days.. even our refrigerator, air con, TV, etc were of Mitsubishi Electric, even the Writing Pen was of Mitsubishi too Where are they now these days ?!?!
I used to own this thing years ago, and unfortunately, it was dead. It was from my uncle who he worked in Japan for a long time ago. He used it as an in-car navigation system with the map software installed on it and it was really useful for him. This thing along with the Toshiba Libretto 50M was a handy device for the salesman in Japan to carry them at work.
I never knew these existing. I think it was very neat and was ahead of its time. the fact it could be used for recipes is pretty awesome. Keep up the great work on these hidden gems.
I never heard of this particular model too, but those things were kinda common but just not for the masses as they were likely too expensive... I worked with one from other brand that was more rugged and more military style but was way into 2000's and for the massive high megapixels airplane photos we worked it was just a huge disgrace as it took 4 ever to load being an outdated model from late 90s with wind 98, it lacked performance for that task... Also the touch worked by pressure and was all screwed that we had to make a lot of strength and also needed many batteries cause they were all pretty bad by then. Ps: I'm guessing back then mostly only companies would have them purely for working cause other than that I'm guessing only wealthy people could have such thing more as a niche thing. At least where I live back then even laptops weren't much common until more into 2000's and always heavily lacked performance 4 the price compared to desktop...
(11:14) I imagine that the tablet was used by one or more Casio employees in around 1999 or so to test UI mockups as it was similar to what the 'Casio Netkitchen' Internet appliance would've been had it released, and judging by the UI, it probably would've run some version of QNX RTOS or Linux, and have a DSTN LCD panel with resistive touch input, designed specifically to be put in a kitchen. If it were released, reviewers would've probably compared it to the 3com Ergo series (of which only the kitchen-oriented Audrey was ever released), Amstrad e-mailer, and/or Netpliance i-opener. Multiple tablets were likely purchased to allow different employees to test different UI designs and pitch the system to partners, but the project likely failed for other reasons or them not being able to get the partnerships they wanted.
Yea, I was gonna say something similar, mocking up kiosk or appliance software frontends and whatnot. I'm a programmer and multiple previous workplaces of mine would do that regularly as part of their design and development process, though some of them would intentionally leave it in the wireframe stage if clients didn't approve, were wishy-washy about certain things, etc.
@@apollolux Come to think of it, I only imagined my answer because I did do a similar thing to what you mentioned with a software project I worked on as a side project. Back when I actively worked on it, because the software was being designed to run on e-paper displays, I tested the designs on a BOOX tablet running Figma Mirror and connected to Figma running on my desktop PC. The designs still haven't the wireframing stage as I hadn't yet designed the visual style for the UX, and I have many unorganised ideas for it, as well as for other projects. (Edit 2 months later: rewrote 'side project I worked on as a side project' to 'software project I worked on as a side project' to correct a brain blip)
@@kbhasi Figma+Figma Mirror+a barebones base visual style sounds like a groovy repeatable approach. I do something similar in pure HTML+CSS with website mockup skeletons in the early/prototyping stages. :)
@@apollolux , it probably would've run some version of QNX RTOS or Linux, and have a DSTN LCD panel, how about touchscreen, that's problem, getting Wacom, compatible for screen, so where theses Wacom touchscreen the same one on kitchen appliances with that edgy 2.0 web vibe?
@@dh2032 Spec-wise that sounds reasonable for the era, sure, and MJD did indeed say that the touchscreen was Wacom. As for _where_ it would've or could've been, my guess is that given the use of Mitsubishi hardware and potential involvement of Casio with software design it could very easily have been something attached to a fridge or near one, possibly a precursor or early prototype of smart fridge or something before companies like Samsung and LG executed on it better since I don't believe that hardware-wise they would've accepted the losses that i-Opener did if they had similar device intentions.
While I worked at a Mitsubishi dealer in aus, we had one of these in daily use running our diagnostic computer for the cars, it was still in use when I left earlier in the year, very cool little piece of kit
It was still being used in 2023 at a dealership? Thats insane. Was it just for old cars or did it receive updates for new models? I would think even a bare bone $200 autel would do more than this thing lol. But that is interesting for sure. Kind of like I use software at work that requires Internet explorer to run. And last year Microsoft killed off IE so we have to run it in Edge using Internet Explorer mode. Yeah that is a thing. haha. And if I told you the company you would laugh because its not exactly a small company.
What's more amazing is the handwriting recognition UI looks.... exactly the same as it did in XP and Win7... Crazy that the precursor versions went back this far!
@@mathewvanostin7118I never really considered PDAs to be tablets, since they’re so small. If anything, they were closer to advanced calculators/digital planners.
I don't remember exactly but the icons of the CASIO apps (especially the casiohand one) are the default icons of executable export of a program that's used to create a lot of the CD autorun interfaces in the 90s. Could be Macromedia Director / Shockwave. Myst and the 7th guest also used it, and Apple Pippin kind of supported it. Could also be older "Macromedia Action!", which is more like an interactive slideshow tool. Both discontinued in favor of Flash. That CASIO NetKitchen app could be a proof of concept that never got a real implementation.
3 and 4 are definitely Macromedia Director Projectors, I think the other one might be one too though can't remember which Macromedia product it actually was for.
That Casio Netkitchen find is awesome! That's why I personally believe when getting a used PC that has a working HDD in it, to always check the contents just in case there is something not archived on it.
Seriously. My uncle gave me an old 1994-5-ish Toshiba Satellite Pro he found at a thrift store back when I was in high school in the late 2000s. I remember firing it up and it had Lotus office suite software and apparently had a ton of use. The original owner was an attorney, but luckily/sadly it didn't have any case notes. But it did have some of her reminders and schedule information, and some personal notes over the years she had the laptop. She had upgraded it from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, and near the end of the calendar entries were stuff like "Wedding Dress Fitting" and "The Big Day", and then she started signing letters as "Mrs. [NewName]." So wholesome lmfao. Just this history of a person who exists outside of my universe who didn't wipe their information so that I could peek into another life for an afternoon.
@@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli It must be Toshiba owners that do that :D :D i got an old Toshiba laptop full of personal details, I found the person through Linkedin , and messaged them, yo, I found your laptop you used 1998-2002, do you want the data? they actually replied back and said no it;s fine , asked me to delete it. I collect old hardware from different time periods. I got this one from the trash bin, the puzzle, is, where had it been from 2002 to 2020, because there was nothing newer than stuff from 2002 on it.
I wonder if this tablet was used by Casio to develop the NetKitchen app? Maybe UI testing and development, prototyping etc. Perhaps even pitching it to those companies such as Ticketmaster or Macys. Pretty cool none the less - it's surprising it hasn't been wiped! I love seeing how the past predicts the future, and seeing how similar, or different it turned out to be.
The NetKitchen demo on the tablet is clearly just a mockup, probably made up by a different or a skeleton team to show the potential what that application would be if it was actually created. The real version obviously would be internet-connected and would actually work, IE not just be a slideshow that advances from clicks like a Figma prototype. I imagine the tablet here either was a dev device but might also been a demonstration machine used a few times without needing an actual Casio device, given the app might have been part of a planned combined hardware+software setup with a Casio tablet with specific target audiences like the kitchen use case. Hell, it could have been a part of a cancelled Casio smart fridge from the 90's.
probably a mock up of a custom web browser designed to maximize performance on that hardware that they gave up on. One built around the touch screen and writing capabilities of the device. Im sure the pen works fine with IE but a custom interface would have been neat. @@madmax404
Back in 2010 there is a clearance of Amity VP that was used for inventory management on a huge warehouse in my local area, I still regret not to snatch couple of those considering nowadays it is impossible to find one, let alone on working condition
i was an elementary school kid in 98 and a friend of mine had one of these. we all thought it was freakin cool. he later was able to add emulators to it, so having an oversized portable machine was awesome. thanks for the video and thank my fellow Alex for passing this one along!
Emulating multiple consoles on a color screen this size, compared with the mobile gaming offerings of that time period is hilarious. I was running emulators as a kid, but on machines half as big as me lol.
@@devenbs1993 I mean, I had one of those attachable screens for my PS2 and would take it to the Boys and Girls Club to dunk on foos in 2005, so to me it's not that weird. The screen size is about the same actually!
I found your channel like 5 months or so ago and I’m hooked. You get your hands on some obscure stuff I’ve never even heard of. Like this that album released on a genesis cart, Web TV and some cool extras like the Minecraft stuff. Anyways, I rarely comment on any videos, but you’re doing great! Here’s to the channels growth 🎉
had one of this machine, paid around $100 about 2001, love it. use it for programming a lot. still have all the drivers and softwares of it in my NAS now.
can you upload the drivers to internetarchive i found two of these in my garage and the hds are toast lol I can replace those but will need the software and drivers
That hibernate on disk was a feature back then for many laptops, until (at least) P2 era. I have a P2@233 notebook with that feature; it came with a utility (it is called Pdisk) that make a partition on the HDD with the same size as the installed memory and saves the memory contents there when hibernates (it have the same interface dialog when hibernates). If the HDD is already partitioned and formatted, that utility can make a hidden file to use with the same purpose; however, in the documetation they recommend to use the dedicated partition instead the file mode. If that utility is not installed, the computer simply throws a error and ask you to use thatutility to configure the hibernation. If change the HDD, must reconfigure the hibernation. The beauty is that it is independent of the OS, can use it with dos, Windows or Linux, never mind if the OS is aware or not of the hibernation.
Yah, we had a 486 laptop with a "Suspend" (hibernate) feature. It had far less of a dialog though. You just hit Fn + one of the F keys (I forget which one), and the screen would change to a BIOS "Suspending to disk..." message while saving, before the computer shut off. Turning it back on, you'd get a similar "Resuming..." message until everything was loaded again. No idea what color those boxes were; the laptop had a black-and-white LCD screen, and we never did plug an external monitor into it.
I wonder why it's not a thing in today's computers. I've had windows PCs that failed to hibernate or Linux installations where it was really difficult to set up hibernation. Probably because it would mean to reserve disk space and then you would have less disk size to advertise
I know that many Win 3.1, 95 or DOS machines are still being used in lathes, presses etc. industrial machines. Once in my workplace we had to replace failed hard disk on one of them. Thankfully we were able to harvest the software from the old one before it failed completely. It was hard to find small enough HDD to replace the old one. I think it needed to be under 10gb to the bios to read it.
0:04 Also they're known for airconditioners, but it is made by two different Mitsubishi companies named Mitsubishi Electric (which also makes that Mitsubishi Amity Windows 95 tablet) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Yeah I know them from their cars, AC units and even lifts (they have Mitsubishi lifts in the shopping center nearby). But not from consumer electronics.
They made lots of VCRs, TVs and CRTs as well back in the days. Some of the best around even. They stopped their electronics here in NA around the mid-90s. Still dailying a Mitsubishi Megaview, a 1995 37-inch CRT HD monitor, in the house.
@@natsukage3960 Oh yah, my grandparents had Mitsubishi TVs and VCRs, and had a Mitsubishi car too until Grandma traded it in for a Saab. (But my parents always had Sony TVs and VCRs in our house though, only changing to Hitachi and others in the HD era. Mom even had a Betamax VCR and camcorder, until the VCR eventually died in the 2000s.)
Those Casio apps are almost certainly UX prototypes, either iterations or variations (the numbering scheme), meant to be used in usability research to test to and refine the software. They are likely one of a kind, because these are usually meant to be thrown away afterwards.
Honestly, I love that this channel showcases a time when technology felt more special. When the internet wasn't suffering mass content-generation, ensh!ttification, and rampant capitalism. Thank you for showing us a time where things were more fun and exciting.
If it was owned by Casio, maybe they wanted to license this device from Mitsubishi and sell it under a different name as a kitchen appliance, or maybe this program was pitched to them at some point but it didn't go into production?
Customer: I need an economy hatchback. Mitsubishi: I got you. Customer: Cool, thanks! I've also been looking for a new VCR, Air conditioner, and tablet computer, do you happen to know anyone selling good ones? Mitsubishi: ...you're not gonna believe this
@@trashyraccoon2615Mitsubishi pens were my favourite back when I still bought pens, though Pilot needlepoint were really good too. (I just buy bottled ink now because I’m an insufferable fountain pen nerd.)
Was thinking about how people used smaller devices like these without a full function keyboard. I was a bit young at the time, but was there small keyboard options in the early 90's and stuff? All I ever saw was the normal Windows keyboards and my personal favorite, the Gateway keyboard I had, it's one of those ones that splits down the middle and curves.
Hi Michael MJD I am new at the channel and I am 13 years old. So its pretty wierd that I have got interested to your channel. BUT. YOUR CONTENT IS COOL. And also Id like to thank you very much for your videos cous you made my day better with every your video (Sorry for my English I am Armenian so its a little but Hard to chat). Again and again thanks😊😊
I assume that casio software was just a showcase of a UI concept, the tablet was probably chosen for a similar resolution and/or size as what they intended the end product to be like. Its not a touch screen so it would not have been ideal to show off a touch screen product however its good enough In the modern age we just grab an ipad and scale the window and resolution, load it with photoshop made images and show those we need to show, however i could see back then it would be easier to just have a bunch of tablet computers on a shelf and make simple showcase software. But i dunno, i was 7 in 1999
You’re always bringing neat, under-the-radar retro tech to the forefront; thank you! Also, TIL how to pronounce ‘Wacom’ correctly - I’ve been saying in wrong since the early 00’s 😂
What a nice machine. The concept, the design, durability, nice hardware, nice software specially the hibernation feature. This is innovation, but them many will go saying that Apple invented tablets with the iPad...
Mitsubishi the car company? Never. Mistubishi Electric? Since the 1970s if not earlier. Mitsubishi Electric (founded in the 20s, broken away from the other Mistubishis after WWII) was one of the larger semiconductor companies for a while too.
I know a lot of aircons from them (Mitsubishi is "Heavy Industries" and sits in like any market even pens dubbed "Uni". Subaru is from Fuji heavy Industries so likewise as Mitsubishi) “the board hasn’t have anything to do with everything as a whole as they have different boards per sector so to speak”. (Mitsubishi was broken off after WW2 so no same board and that shows at Mitsubishi Motors today)
Wow, this thing is very similar to a Fujitsu Stylistic Win95 tablet I have. It also comes with the pen services and the pen looks very similar, even with the clunky side buttons to do mouse clicks.
0:50 Interesting, in this guide's cover, this is a Lamy Safari fountain pen. It's an iconic not too expensive pen from a well known german company, with a very recognizable design
@@Ybalrid I have one, bought about 5 years ago :) honestly I didn’t like how quickly the ink evaporates though. My main fountain pen is a different one at a similar price, which seals more strongly in the lid. It’s got more traditional lines though, and I still very much enjoy looking at my “Petrol” Safari’s clean lines and proportions.
Modern day tech is just updated tech from the 80s and 90s. The self driving cars date back to the 80s, the internet dates back to the 70s, and VR dates back to the damn 50s. Just picture what else has been invented that we don’t even know about yet.
Wow, what a blast from the past. I only saw this on some ads from the day. Very expensive back then to me. If I remember correctly, there’s a keyboard dock that connects this tablet. Very sad that the batteries are shot on this. That’s why the battery lights were flashing, indicating there’s a problem.
@AlexReiterProductions Oh, really. You have a rare antique tech that's still in great condition for its age. Unfortunate that you don't have the dock, which I understand was another $1k for it back then. The only other portable tech that's smaller is Toshiba Libertto series from what I know and it's nowhere compared to yours.
@@generationscomputersystems I've given up on the dock as unobtanium.. The PCMCIA card you see installed in there is a 3com network card so I can get files onto it. Had to remove the hard drive and attach it to another computer to copy the drivers over.
I'm wondering if there's pressure sensitivity too, since it's a sensor used by Wacom's tablets. It would be interesting to try and draw with one of these!
I see the Casio demo application is created with Macromedia tools from that old Director icon. The Shockwave technology it uses is related to that and the better-known Flash platform, but I'm not the best person to explain it because I never really grasped it.
Question: Can this machine be upgraded? I'd love to see it with: 1. A RAM upgrade from 32 to 64MB 2. A larger hard drive (at least 1GB) 3. Install Windows 98
This was WAY ahead of its time. A tablet you can order groceries and movie tickets via internet connection and stored personalized shopping habits integrated with your calender.... in the 90s. Thats wild af. At this time, I was waiting two hours to see a picture of boobs once it loaded.
I like those old tablets. I have a Fujitsu Stylistic 3500X Tablet PC. It's fun to play around with. The dock is working really well. It even boots via PXE.
That's how all screens were if they were not desktop PCs. I remember my sister having a school laptop with win 95 and it ghosted just like that. I think it was like from 97 or 98
Mitsubishi was getting into some weird stuff in the 90's. A few years before this wonder, they repurposed Hudson's Bee Card format (game ROM cards for the MSX, predecessor of the PC Engine's HuCard) into EEPROM telephone cards and then into SRAM storage for Korg synthesizers. Weird company...
My grandma had a MASSIVE Mitsubishi rear projection TV that finally kicked the bucket about 5 years ago after at least 25 years of use, and some repairs along the way too.
The Casio programs are executable Macromedia Shockwave (aka Director) files. Most likely was just a concept for a Casio internet appliance that might have never made it past idea phase. The dates of the files puts them squarely in the middle of that fad. The WebTV, i-Opener the 3Com Audrey plus a few others in this trend to bring the internet to the masses.
That Casio Kitchen software was part of the marketing push to sell the idea of computers being more than just a work station or game platform. In 1999 most PCs were still in a wood hutch somewhere, connected to dial-up internet a few hours a week. In the end, we really did get what that app was trying to be ... like 10 years later.
I posted more details on the Reddit thread, but from the HDD image I found that the netkitchen files are shockwave demos made by a design firm called IDEO, and the user of this tablet downloaded them from a network share called CASIO-PDC (primary domain controller?). They contain almost zero code, other than navigation between images. Can’t find anything on the web archive about Casio being a client of IDEO back then so it probably was a pitch that didn’t go anywhere? Maybe we’ll still find more clues, who knows.
You should consider disassembling the Casio app or mining it and the data files for ascii strings (with the strings unix/linux tool or something similar) It would not surprise me if that gives some good clues as to who developed the app and why.
I'm always wondering if old tech like this could be retrofitted to use decentralized tech of today? We already have frogfind for old computers.... I'm wondering if we could have mastadon or zeronet ,holochain GNUnet fully distributed p2p adhoc mesh networks ect ect.
I'm a UI designer and yeah, the other people in the comments are pretty much right. The Casio app thing is just a UI prototype. It has no code attached to it, it's basically just a slideshow of the interface the designers mocked up, a precursor of what UI designers do these days with Figma.
What a crazy thing in two parts! A Windows 95 in a tablet, and at the same time, that this tablet is of Mitsubishi. And I know it that Mitsubishi mounts TV's, coolers, projectors, and, in low measure, computers. But that in the same time Mitsubishi assembles in the past a Tablet PC... Incredible, unique, and very strange to search in the actuality.
hey Michael! I was wondering if you have any updates on the MSN TV 2 and wondering if you could do a follow up video if you found something. you make great content which makes my day, thank you!
Can this machine be upgraded? I would love to see it with A Ram upgrade to 64MB (possibly 128MB) A hard drive upgrade to at least 1GB (more space is better)
Love to see you make a video on Better Explorer. It's a tool that installs the ribbon UI from Windows 8 and above on Windows 7 and it's looks and behaves exactly like the Windows 8 one.
This is really neat! Computing in the 90’s and early 2000’s was like the Wild West- anything and everything was tried out. I kind of miss when products were less “samey” even though computers are obviously better to use now.
My guess is the Casio Netkitchen and the iterations of had nothing to do with the company Casio. It's likely to be written in-house within Mitsubishi and Casio is in fact an acronym that aligns with an organiser that is also connected to the Internet when available. Hence the calendar, organiser functions, shopping, browser etc.
Surprisingly very responsive and a kid today could pick it up and know how to use it. Incredible to see how importantly what was invented before still shapes life today (my screen at work in 2024 is almost exactly the same still!)
That wasn't ghosting, it was called Pointer trails. "Pointer trails are a feature in Microsoft Windows that makes it easier to see where the mouse is moving on the screen." It's disabled by default but it can be enabled.
The only thing I could find about "Netkitchen" is that it's apparently a contemporaneous (founded in 1996, apparently) marketing company for webservices. Presumably it spun out of Casio somehow, based on the branding on this device (the logos at least look similar). The kind of demos we're seeing certainly match that kind of work -- demoing interfaces for various branded services using online components. Perhaps the tablet was used so they could demonstrate sample website/webservices they'd worked on for potential clients? Now if Netkitchen were supposed to be branding for a specific device, I don't think it could have been released under that name due to the trademark already existing in a webservices context -- I think the brand confusion potential would lead to it not happening. So if this *is* supposed to be a demo for some device tentatively called the "netkitchen" it certainly would have only been an internal name for it.
Mitsubishi, windows95 and tablet are not words I expected to hear in the same sentence ever
Not the Mitsubishi tablet you were expecting eh? 😂
you kidding? they used to make awesome devices much like toshiba
They made Tvs VCRs and camcorders as fast as they can
Those days.. even our refrigerator, air con, TV, etc were of Mitsubishi Electric, even the Writing Pen was of Mitsubishi too
Where are they now these days ?!?!
@@RIZFERD near bankruptcy
I used to own this thing years ago, and unfortunately, it was dead. It was from my uncle who he worked in Japan for a long time ago. He used it as an in-car navigation system with the map software installed on it and it was really useful for him. This thing along with the Toshiba Libretto 50M was a handy device for the salesman in Japan to carry them at work.
bro i cannot go to your channel how
@@Frannoidea how did bro do that???
bro wtf
Nani!?
Blud deleted his UA-cam channel in Ohio
I never knew these existing. I think it was very neat and was ahead of its time. the fact it could be used for recipes is pretty awesome. Keep up the great work on these hidden gems.
holup how did you comment 23 hours ago when this was only out for 4 hours
I never heard of this particular model too, but those things were kinda common but just not for the masses as they were likely too expensive...
I worked with one from other brand that was more rugged and more military style but was way into 2000's and for the massive high megapixels airplane photos we worked it was just a huge disgrace as it took 4 ever to load being an outdated model from late 90s with wind 98, it lacked performance for that task...
Also the touch worked by pressure and was all screwed that we had to make a lot of strength and also needed many batteries cause they were all pretty bad by then.
Ps: I'm guessing back then mostly only companies would have them purely for working cause other than that I'm guessing only wealthy people could have such thing more as a niche thing. At least where I live back then even laptops weren't much common until more into 2000's and always heavily lacked performance 4 the price compared to desktop...
(11:14) I imagine that the tablet was used by one or more Casio employees in around 1999 or so to test UI mockups as it was similar to what the 'Casio Netkitchen' Internet appliance would've been had it released, and judging by the UI, it probably would've run some version of QNX RTOS or Linux, and have a DSTN LCD panel with resistive touch input, designed specifically to be put in a kitchen. If it were released, reviewers would've probably compared it to the 3com Ergo series (of which only the kitchen-oriented Audrey was ever released), Amstrad e-mailer, and/or Netpliance i-opener. Multiple tablets were likely purchased to allow different employees to test different UI designs and pitch the system to partners, but the project likely failed for other reasons or them not being able to get the partnerships they wanted.
Yea, I was gonna say something similar, mocking up kiosk or appliance software frontends and whatnot. I'm a programmer and multiple previous workplaces of mine would do that regularly as part of their design and development process, though some of them would intentionally leave it in the wireframe stage if clients didn't approve, were wishy-washy about certain things, etc.
@@apollolux
Come to think of it, I only imagined my answer because I did do a similar thing to what you mentioned with a software project I worked on as a side project. Back when I actively worked on it, because the software was being designed to run on e-paper displays, I tested the designs on a BOOX tablet running Figma Mirror and connected to Figma running on my desktop PC. The designs still haven't the wireframing stage as I hadn't yet designed the visual style for the UX, and I have many unorganised ideas for it, as well as for other projects.
(Edit 2 months later: rewrote 'side project I worked on as a side project' to 'software project I worked on as a side project' to correct a brain blip)
@@kbhasi Figma+Figma Mirror+a barebones base visual style sounds like a groovy repeatable approach. I do something similar in pure HTML+CSS with website mockup skeletons in the early/prototyping stages. :)
@@apollolux , it probably would've run some version of QNX RTOS or Linux, and have a DSTN LCD panel, how about touchscreen, that's problem, getting Wacom, compatible for screen, so where theses Wacom touchscreen the same one on kitchen appliances with that edgy 2.0 web vibe?
@@dh2032 Spec-wise that sounds reasonable for the era, sure, and MJD did indeed say that the touchscreen was Wacom. As for _where_ it would've or could've been, my guess is that given the use of Mitsubishi hardware and potential involvement of Casio with software design it could very easily have been something attached to a fridge or near one, possibly a precursor or early prototype of smart fridge or something before companies like Samsung and LG executed on it better since I don't believe that hardware-wise they would've accepted the losses that i-Opener did if they had similar device intentions.
While I worked at a Mitsubishi dealer in aus, we had one of these in daily use running our diagnostic computer for the cars, it was still in use when I left earlier in the year, very cool little piece of kit
It was still being used in 2023 at a dealership? Thats insane. Was it just for old cars or did it receive updates for new models? I would think even a bare bone $200 autel would do more than this thing lol. But that is interesting for sure. Kind of like I use software at work that requires Internet explorer to run. And last year Microsoft killed off IE so we have to run it in Edge using Internet Explorer mode. Yeah that is a thing. haha. And if I told you the company you would laugh because its not exactly a small company.
@@scottcol23 He didnt say it was in 2023. Likely in the 90s
@@jasoncruz19800 He literally said " it was still in use when I left earlier in the year"
I had no idea native Windows tablet interfaces were a thing in Windows 95, let alone earlier! Fascinating.
What's more amazing is the handwriting recognition UI looks.... exactly the same as it did in XP and Win7... Crazy that the precursor versions went back this far!
Those things existed since the 1980s. They were called "pocket computer" "portable computer"
@@mathewvanostin7118I never really considered PDAs to be tablets, since they’re so small. If anything, they were closer to advanced calculators/digital planners.
This already had an AM5 AMD CPU. State of the art even today.
yep
💾
How so
lol it’s a joke. AM5 is the current AMD socket platform
I wanted to make that comment too
literally what has mitsubishi not made
Spacecraft?
@@LegoWormNoah101 "Mitsubishi SpaceJet" close enough?
@@LegoWormNoah101Might have done some work for JSA, even satellites. But don’t quote me on that.
@@LegoWormNoah101 Done that. H3 and H-IIA rockets are made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Banking ?
I don't remember exactly but the icons of the CASIO apps (especially the casiohand one) are the default icons of executable export of a program that's used to create a lot of the CD autorun interfaces in the 90s. Could be Macromedia Director / Shockwave. Myst and the 7th guest also used it, and Apple Pippin kind of supported it. Could also be older "Macromedia Action!", which is more like an interactive slideshow tool. Both discontinued in favor of Flash.
That CASIO NetKitchen app could be a proof of concept that never got a real implementation.
3 and 4 are definitely Macromedia Director Projectors, I think the other one might be one too though can't remember which Macromedia product it actually was for.
Very interesting small history tidbit abi, teşekkürler
Myst used Apple HyperCard and The 7th Guest used a custom engine developed Graeme Devine.
That Casio Netkitchen find is awesome! That's why I personally believe when getting a used PC that has a working HDD in it, to always check the contents just in case there is something not archived on it.
Seriously.
My uncle gave me an old 1994-5-ish Toshiba Satellite Pro he found at a thrift store back when I was in high school in the late 2000s. I remember firing it up and it had Lotus office suite software and apparently had a ton of use. The original owner was an attorney, but luckily/sadly it didn't have any case notes. But it did have some of her reminders and schedule information, and some personal notes over the years she had the laptop. She had upgraded it from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, and near the end of the calendar entries were stuff like "Wedding Dress Fitting" and "The Big Day", and then she started signing letters as "Mrs. [NewName]." So wholesome lmfao.
Just this history of a person who exists outside of my universe who didn't wipe their information so that I could peek into another life for an afternoon.
@@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli Aww, yeah, that absolutely is wholesome!
@@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli It must be Toshiba owners that do that :D :D i got an old Toshiba laptop full of personal details, I found the person through Linkedin , and messaged them, yo, I found your laptop you used 1998-2002, do you want the data? they actually replied back and said no it;s fine , asked me to delete it. I collect old hardware from different time periods. I got this one from the trash bin, the puzzle, is, where had it been from 2002 to 2020, because there was nothing newer than stuff from 2002 on it.
I wonder if this tablet was used by Casio to develop the NetKitchen app? Maybe UI testing and development, prototyping etc. Perhaps even pitching it to those companies such as Ticketmaster or Macys. Pretty cool none the less - it's surprising it hasn't been wiped! I love seeing how the past predicts the future, and seeing how similar, or different it turned out to be.
*nonetheless
The NetKitchen demo on the tablet is clearly just a mockup, probably made up by a different or a skeleton team to show the potential what that application would be if it was actually created. The real version obviously would be internet-connected and would actually work, IE not just be a slideshow that advances from clicks like a Figma prototype.
I imagine the tablet here either was a dev device but might also been a demonstration machine used a few times without needing an actual Casio device, given the app might have been part of a planned combined hardware+software setup with a Casio tablet with specific target audiences like the kitchen use case. Hell, it could have been a part of a cancelled Casio smart fridge from the 90's.
probably a mock up of a custom web browser designed to maximize performance on that hardware that they gave up on. One built around the touch screen and writing capabilities of the device. Im sure the pen works fine with IE but a custom interface would have been neat. @@madmax404
@@incumbentvinyl9291who cares
Another random Mitsubishi fact - they also maintain the escalators and elevators for Los Angeles Metro stations (and I’m sure others).
their elevators are pretty good!
I commute in the Metro daily and there is always ONE broken down. Lol
Back in 2010 there is a clearance of Amity VP that was used for inventory management on a huge warehouse in my local area, I still regret not to snatch couple of those considering nowadays it is impossible to find one, let alone on working condition
You would be a millionaire
i was an elementary school kid in 98 and a friend of mine had one of these. we all thought it was freakin cool. he later was able to add emulators to it, so having an oversized portable machine was awesome. thanks for the video and thank my fellow Alex for passing this one along!
Emulating multiple consoles on a color screen this size, compared with the mobile gaming offerings of that time period is hilarious. I was running emulators as a kid, but on machines half as big as me lol.
Yeah but probably GBA and older consoles, not sure it can handle PSX or N64
@@devenbs1993 I mean, I had one of those attachable screens for my PS2 and would take it to the Boys and Girls Club to dunk on foos in 2005, so to me it's not that weird. The screen size is about the same actually!
I found your channel like 5 months or so ago and I’m hooked. You get your hands on some obscure stuff I’ve never even heard of. Like this that album released on a genesis cart, Web TV and some cool extras like the Minecraft stuff. Anyways, I rarely comment on any videos, but you’re doing great! Here’s to the channels growth 🎉
had one of this machine, paid around $100 about 2001, love it.
use it for programming a lot.
still have all the drivers and softwares of it in my NAS now.
can you upload the drivers to internetarchive i found two of these in my garage and the hds are toast lol I can replace those but will need the software and drivers
That hibernate on disk was a feature back then for many laptops, until (at least) P2 era. I have a P2@233 notebook with that feature; it came with a utility (it is called Pdisk) that make a partition on the HDD with the same size as the installed memory and saves the memory contents there when hibernates (it have the same interface dialog when hibernates). If the HDD is already partitioned and formatted, that utility can make a hidden file to use with the same purpose; however, in the documetation they recommend to use the dedicated partition instead the file mode. If that utility is not installed, the computer simply throws a error and ask you to use thatutility to configure the hibernation. If change the HDD, must reconfigure the hibernation. The beauty is that it is independent of the OS, can use it with dos, Windows or Linux, never mind if the OS is aware or not of the hibernation.
Yah, we had a 486 laptop with a "Suspend" (hibernate) feature. It had far less of a dialog though. You just hit Fn + one of the F keys (I forget which one), and the screen would change to a BIOS "Suspending to disk..." message while saving, before the computer shut off. Turning it back on, you'd get a similar "Resuming..." message until everything was loaded again. No idea what color those boxes were; the laptop had a black-and-white LCD screen, and we never did plug an external monitor into it.
IIRC Mac OS added it as a feature with the original iBook in 1999, but it was disabled later due to a bug in the ROM.
I wonder why it's not a thing in today's computers. I've had windows PCs that failed to hibernate or Linux installations where it was really difficult to set up hibernation. Probably because it would mean to reserve disk space and then you would have less disk size to advertise
@@paco3523 I think it is. Except that it just happens automatically when the battery is low.
Awesome for u to feature this device. I just knew about it and I'm a huge tablet PC fan!
This tablet is a beast it's being use to run a 5 ton hydraulic press at my workplace.
holy hell that's an interesting use
how??
I know that many Win 3.1, 95 or DOS machines are still being used in lathes, presses etc. industrial machines. Once in my workplace we had to replace failed hard disk on one of them. Thankfully we were able to harvest the software from the old one before it failed completely. It was hard to find small enough HDD to replace the old one. I think it needed to be under 10gb to the bios to read it.
Can confirm, the laser that cuts my metal parts, huge Trumf machine runs on 3 win 3.11 machines.
0:04 Also they're known for airconditioners, but it is made by two different Mitsubishi companies named Mitsubishi Electric (which also makes that Mitsubishi Amity Windows 95 tablet) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
My go-to channel for old school geek needs. Cheers Michael
Beautiful device, I never thought Mitsubishi made any electronics like this. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah I know them from their cars, AC units and even lifts (they have Mitsubishi lifts in the shopping center nearby). But not from consumer electronics.
They made lots of VCRs, TVs and CRTs as well back in the days. Some of the best around even. They stopped their electronics here in NA around the mid-90s. Still dailying a Mitsubishi Megaview, a 1995 37-inch CRT HD monitor, in the house.
@@natsukage3960 Oh yah, my grandparents had Mitsubishi TVs and VCRs, and had a Mitsubishi car too until Grandma traded it in for a Saab.
(But my parents always had Sony TVs and VCRs in our house though, only changing to Hitachi and others in the HD era. Mom even had a Betamax VCR and camcorder, until the VCR eventually died in the 2000s.)
Mitsubishi is Japanese a Zaibatsu..and a former Samurai in the 1800s. Extremely interesting beginning.
I'm looking forward to seeing other devices like this ✨
That looks so cool, and far ahead of its time! I'd love an in-depth video on the history behind this thing, and its funtionality.
Those Casio apps are almost certainly UX prototypes, either iterations or variations (the numbering scheme), meant to be used in usability research to test to and refine the software. They are likely one of a kind, because these are usually meant to be thrown away afterwards.
Dude,I always put ur vids to sleep on, and surprisingly I remember everything you said keep it like this 👍
Honestly, I love that this channel showcases a time when technology felt more special. When the internet wasn't suffering mass content-generation, ensh!ttification, and rampant capitalism. Thank you for showing us a time where things were more fun and exciting.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing this unknown tidbit of information!
If it was owned by Casio, maybe they wanted to license this device from Mitsubishi and sell it under a different name as a kitchen appliance, or maybe this program was pitched to them at some point but it didn't go into production?
"Mitsubishi! They built the planes that bombed the harbor" - Cotton Hill
Customer: I need an economy hatchback.
Mitsubishi: I got you.
Customer: Cool, thanks! I've also been looking for a new VCR, Air conditioner, and tablet computer, do you happen to know anyone selling good ones?
Mitsubishi: ...you're not gonna believe this
They also make pencils and pens.
@@trashyraccoon2615Mitsubishi pens were my favourite back when I still bought pens, though Pilot needlepoint were really good too. (I just buy bottled ink now because I’m an insufferable fountain pen nerd.)
@@kaitlyn__L Awesome! I used fountain pens in art class in college. Pilot Precise V5 ftw on regular pens though
@@trashyraccoon2615 I think I’ve still got a couple V5 and V7s in various colours sitting around :) if the ink hasn’t evaporated!
@@kaitlyn__L im more of a peasant here but their boxy pens were my trusty highschool pens. those things just glide smoothly in my notebooks.
Was thinking about how people used smaller devices like these without a full function keyboard. I was a bit young at the time, but was there small keyboard options in the early 90's and stuff? All I ever saw was the normal Windows keyboards and my personal favorite, the Gateway keyboard I had, it's one of those ones that splits down the middle and curves.
Hi Michael MJD I am new at the channel and I am 13 years old. So its pretty wierd that I have got interested to your channel. BUT. YOUR CONTENT IS COOL. And also Id like to thank you very much for your videos cous you made my day better with every your video (Sorry for my English I am Armenian so its a little but Hard to chat). Again and again thanks😊😊
Hey, I'm 16 today and I've been into tech for a while. It isnt weird because tech is pretty cool, and MJD also makes cool videos too.
I assume that casio software was just a showcase of a UI concept, the tablet was probably chosen for a similar resolution and/or size as what they intended the end product to be like. Its not a touch screen so it would not have been ideal to show off a touch screen product however its good enough
In the modern age we just grab an ipad and scale the window and resolution, load it with photoshop made images and show those we need to show, however i could see back then it would be easier to just have a bunch of tablet computers on a shelf and make simple showcase software.
But i dunno, i was 7 in 1999
Really wasnt expecting the Erik's Deli reference. That means the origin of this is roughly Santa Cruz based, and as a resident, I think that's neat
You’re always bringing neat, under-the-radar retro tech to the forefront; thank you! Also, TIL how to pronounce ‘Wacom’ correctly - I’ve been saying in wrong since the early 00’s 😂
What a nice machine. The concept, the design, durability, nice hardware, nice software specially the hibernation feature.
This is innovation, but them many will go saying that Apple invented tablets with the iPad...
I swear, one day Michael will own EVERY single device on this earth.
Also, since when did Mitsubishi even do ANY electronics at all?
They made TVs once
Mitsubishi the car company? Never. Mistubishi Electric? Since the 1970s if not earlier. Mitsubishi Electric (founded in the 20s, broken away from the other Mistubishis after WWII) was one of the larger semiconductor companies for a while too.
I know a lot of aircons from them (Mitsubishi is "Heavy Industries" and sits in like any market even pens dubbed "Uni". Subaru is from Fuji heavy Industries so likewise as Mitsubishi) “the board hasn’t have anything to do with everything as a whole as they have different boards per sector so to speak”. (Mitsubishi was broken off after WW2 so no same board and that shows at Mitsubishi Motors today)
Mitsubishi makes everything, they're a massive industrial concern.
Actually, he doesn't own this tablet, he got it on a loan from a viewer 🤓
Wow, this thing is very similar to a Fujitsu Stylistic Win95 tablet I have. It also comes with the pen services and the pen looks very similar, even with the clunky side buttons to do mouse clicks.
I love old tech like this. Not love enough to own them but love them enough to watch videos on em.
0:50 Interesting, in this guide's cover, this is a Lamy Safari fountain pen. It's an iconic not too expensive pen from a well known german company, with a very recognizable design
It is very photogenic, with its straight lines!
@@kaitlyn__L They are very good reliable pens for around $20. They make them in all the colors you can think of. Same ABS plastic used by LEGO
@@Ybalrid I have one, bought about 5 years ago :) honestly I didn’t like how quickly the ink evaporates though.
My main fountain pen is a different one at a similar price, which seals more strongly in the lid. It’s got more traditional lines though, and I still very much enjoy looking at my “Petrol” Safari’s clean lines and proportions.
@@kaitlyn__L So now I am curious, what's your main pen? 🙂
Modern day tech is just updated tech from the 80s and 90s. The self driving cars date back to the 80s, the internet dates back to the 70s, and VR dates back to the damn 50s. Just picture what else has been invented that we don’t even know about yet.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented stuff back in the 15th century that would become a reality 500 years later.
Wow, what a blast from the past. I only saw this on some ads from the day. Very expensive back then to me.
If I remember correctly, there’s a keyboard dock that connects this tablet.
Very sad that the batteries are shot on this. That’s why the battery lights were flashing, indicating there’s a problem.
Do you remember the price?
The batteries actually work fine and hold a charge for almost an hour. The lights turn green when unplugged. (I'm the guy who sent it in)
@Toonrick12 I know it was really expensive. Portables were at a premium back in those days. I think it was somewhere in $6k-7k region.
@AlexReiterProductions Oh, really. You have a rare antique tech that's still in great condition for its age. Unfortunate that you don't have the dock, which I understand was another $1k for it back then.
The only other portable tech that's smaller is Toshiba Libertto series from what I know and it's nowhere compared to yours.
@@generationscomputersystems I've given up on the dock as unobtanium.. The PCMCIA card you see installed in there is a 3com network card so I can get files onto it. Had to remove the hard drive and attach it to another computer to copy the drivers over.
90s tech was fun the thought that went into things back then it was amazing
I'm wondering if there's pressure sensitivity too, since it's a sensor used by Wacom's tablets. It would be interesting to try and draw with one of these!
I see the Casio demo application is created with Macromedia tools from that old Director icon. The Shockwave technology it uses is related to that and the better-known Flash platform, but I'm not the best person to explain it because I never really grasped it.
Never saw Windows 95 running on a Tablet Computer which was early days, but man this was quite cool.
Lcd response is like passive matrix but doesn't seem to have the ghosting or split between to and bottom half.
very interesting to see online grocery shopping decades before it was a common thing.
The expensive versions of certain Amazon Kindles are finally catching up to this futuristic technology. Simply amazing!
Question: Can this machine be upgraded? I'd love to see it with:
1. A RAM upgrade from 32 to 64MB
2. A larger hard drive (at least 1GB)
3. Install Windows 98
This was WAY ahead of its time. A tablet you can order groceries and movie tickets via internet connection and stored personalized shopping habits integrated with your calender.... in the 90s. Thats wild af. At this time, I was waiting two hours to see a picture of boobs once it loaded.
One of the best MFM/RLL hard drives from back in the day was the Mitsubishi MR-535.
I like those old tablets. I have a Fujitsu Stylistic 3500X Tablet PC. It's fun to play around with. The dock is working really well. It even boots via PXE.
I never knew Mitsubishi made CRTs and VCR’s that’s very interesting and very cool
In my grandparents house there's a Mitsubishi fan. They made all sorts of appliances back in the day.
They were huge in Ireland. sold under the name Mitsubishi Black Diamond. Mitsubishi are also well known here for air conditioning units.
the world is so sad its nice 2 watch ur positive videos :)
the ghosting on that screen is insane
That's how all screens were if they were not desktop PCs. I remember my sister having a school laptop with win 95 and it ghosted just like that. I think it was like from 97 or 98
not insane than streaming ghosting
It's always great to find devices like this especially when there's software on it that people don't know a whole lot about. Added mystery and charm.
Mitsubishi was getting into some weird stuff in the 90's. A few years before this wonder, they repurposed Hudson's Bee Card format (game ROM cards for the MSX, predecessor of the PC Engine's HuCard) into EEPROM telephone cards and then into SRAM storage for Korg synthesizers. Weird company...
That battery swap is pretty cool. This thing was ahead of its time.
My grandma had a MASSIVE Mitsubishi rear projection TV that finally kicked the bucket about 5 years ago after at least 25 years of use, and some repairs along the way too.
The Casio programs are executable Macromedia Shockwave (aka Director) files. Most likely was just a concept for a Casio internet appliance that might have never made it past idea phase. The dates of the files puts them squarely in the middle of that fad. The WebTV, i-Opener the 3Com Audrey plus a few others in this trend to bring the internet to the masses.
Pretty weird to think those wacom tablets haven't changed over the decades
That Casio Kitchen software was part of the marketing push to sell the idea of computers being more than just a work station or game platform. In 1999 most PCs were still in a wood hutch somewhere, connected to dial-up internet a few hours a week. In the end, we really did get what that app was trying to be ... like 10 years later.
That PS/2 port is more like for barcode scanners.
New MJD video, and an evening is very pleasant!
I never knew motor company’s especially Mitsubishi makes tablets! It reminds me of the Hyundai tablet
Mitsubishi Motors never made tablets. This is from Mitsubishi Electric, a separate autonomous company (after the US broke up Mitsubishi after WWII).
@@3DGECASE Ohh I got confused
Recently Hyundai Maded Laptop
@@Hadisabetghadam I think I saw that one
I posted more details on the Reddit thread, but from the HDD image I found that the netkitchen files are shockwave demos made by a design firm called IDEO, and the user of this tablet downloaded them from a network share called CASIO-PDC (primary domain controller?). They contain almost zero code, other than navigation between images. Can’t find anything on the web archive about Casio being a client of IDEO back then so it probably was a pitch that didn’t go anywhere? Maybe we’ll still find more clues, who knows.
The birth of sweaty ipad kids
You should consider disassembling the Casio app or mining it and the data files for ascii strings (with the strings unix/linux tool or something similar)
It would not surprise me if that gives some good clues as to who developed the app and why.
You should install the LCARS interface for this.
dude ok, so i accidentally played that soulja boy beat near your outro and, dude, youre a freestyler, and goddamn youre reeaaaally good at it
here within 1 minute be like:
here within 6 minutes be like:
Here within 11 mins be like:
Here within 13 minutes be like:
Here within 15 minutes be like:
Here within 18 minutes be like:
I'm always wondering if old tech like this could be retrofitted to use decentralized tech of today? We already have frogfind for old computers.... I'm wondering if we could have mastadon or zeronet ,holochain GNUnet fully distributed p2p adhoc mesh networks ect ect.
only ones that dont pay for him can like this comment
I'm a UI designer and yeah, the other people in the comments are pretty much right. The Casio app thing is just a UI prototype. It has no code attached to it, it's basically just a slideshow of the interface the designers mocked up, a precursor of what UI designers do these days with Figma.
even in 2024 we are not yet ready for this type of technology
Truly stunning piece of vintage computing.
What a crazy thing in two parts! A Windows 95 in a tablet, and at the same time, that this tablet is of Mitsubishi. And I know it that Mitsubishi mounts TV's, coolers, projectors, and, in low measure, computers. But that in the same time Mitsubishi assembles in the past a Tablet PC... Incredible, unique, and very strange to search in the actuality.
hey Michael! I was wondering if you have any updates on the MSN TV 2 and wondering if you could do a follow up video if you found something. you make great content which makes my day, thank you!
10:24 - "What is Karen going to want?"
To talk to your manager?
thanks michael i firstly had this on 2007 and sent it to you
I had three of these. We used them in our data collection cars. (It was my business, long since sold, and we modeled traffic.)
Thank you Alex!
a 95 mitsubishi windows… man them things were fast back in the day… used to have one on a poster on my wall when i was a kid.
it's important that the tablet works flawlessly no matter how many decades ago it was made
Can this machine be upgraded? I would love to see it with
A Ram upgrade to 64MB (possibly 128MB)
A hard drive upgrade to at least 1GB (more space is better)
Love to see you make a video on Better Explorer. It's a tool that installs the ribbon UI from Windows 8 and above on Windows 7 and it's looks and behaves exactly like the Windows 8 one.
This is really neat! Computing in the 90’s and early 2000’s was like the Wild West- anything and everything was tried out. I kind of miss when products were less “samey” even though computers are obviously better to use now.
@ 3:14 Damn a tablet that DOUBLES as a cereal bowl? I'm impressed!
My guess is the Casio Netkitchen and the iterations of had nothing to do with the company Casio. It's likely to be written in-house within Mitsubishi and Casio is in fact an acronym that aligns with an organiser that is also connected to the Internet when available. Hence the calendar, organiser functions, shopping, browser etc.
Looks like a tool a dealership would have had running proprietary software like the stuff that powers a Tech 2 for GM, pretty cool.
Does the pen have pressure sensitivity since it was wacom technology?
Surprisingly very responsive and a kid today could pick it up and know how to use it. Incredible to see how importantly what was invented before still shapes life today (my screen at work in 2024 is almost exactly the same still!)
It would be interesting to see if it is possible to draw in Photoshop and whether the stylus recognizes pressure.
4:44 wow this is one intuitive tablet, today’s manufacturers could learn a thing or two from this one.
Does it play that Edie Brickell’s Good Times video? SkiFree or MS Golf?
This is why mjd is best tech UA-camr
The ghosting on that screen is TOO much man! LOL
That wasn't ghosting, it was called Pointer trails. "Pointer trails are a feature in Microsoft Windows that makes it easier to see where the mouse is moving on the screen."
It's disabled by default but it can be enabled.
The only thing I could find about "Netkitchen" is that it's apparently a contemporaneous (founded in 1996, apparently) marketing company for webservices. Presumably it spun out of Casio somehow, based on the branding on this device (the logos at least look similar). The kind of demos we're seeing certainly match that kind of work -- demoing interfaces for various branded services using online components. Perhaps the tablet was used so they could demonstrate sample website/webservices they'd worked on for potential clients?
Now if Netkitchen were supposed to be branding for a specific device, I don't think it could have been released under that name due to the trademark already existing in a webservices context -- I think the brand confusion potential would lead to it not happening. So if this *is* supposed to be a demo for some device tentatively called the "netkitchen" it certainly would have only been an internal name for it.