The Cassiopeia BE-300 Pocket Manager was a
personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in partic ...
manufactured by
Casio Computer Co. Ltd and first released June 25, 2001. In
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, it was also marketed as BE-500. The Cassiopeia BE-300 used a cut-down version of
Windows CE
Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products.
Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...
3.0 that was not fully compatible with Windows CE applications. It featured a 32 thousand colors 320×240
touch-screen
A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...
LCD, a 166 MHz
MIPS CPU, and 16 MB of RAM. It was also equipped with a
CompactFlash
CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994.
CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the e ...
slot, allowing for the expansion of internal memory with external
flash memory
Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...
cards as well as the use of peripheral CF-compatible devices such as
wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
and network adapters. Enthusiast reviews of the device were mixed with some excited about the hacking possibilities and the low price and others were dismissive of the device. In the general press it received modestly positive reviews.
The BE-300 was reasonably hackable and a community grew up dedicated to modifying it.
See also
*
Casio Cassiopeia
Casio Cassiopeia was the brand name of a PDA manufactured by Casio. It used Windows CE as the Operating system. Casio was one of the first manufacturers of PDAs, developing at the beginning small pocket-sized computers with keyboards and grayscale ...
References
External links
Casio New Zealand Support Downloads for the Be300Remaining Information from Casio's siteThe BE-300 Advancement Society!PPX and Expod Main Website MutantCheese's BE300 PageABF forumsMono-Q Japanese Software Website and Home of SQ
{{DEFAULTSORT:Casio Be-300
Casio personal digital assistants
Windows CE devices
Products introduced in 2001