The REX 6000 is an ultra-thin Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) produced by Xircom, and later

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

, from about 2000 to 2001. The REX may be synchronized by inserting it in a host PC's PCMCIA/PC-card slot. Docking stations were manufactured for connection to hosts without PC card Type-II slots, which allows the REX to be connected via a USB or serial connection. The REX 6000 is the successor to the Franklin REX 5000, with a notable difference being the addition of a

touch screen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...

. In addition, it is possible to remove and install executable code (including both custom applications and the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

itself). As with the earlier models, the REX 6000 hardware was developed by the Citizen Watch Company of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, marketed as the "DataSlim-2". The firmware for previous REX models was written by Starfish Software, but the REX 6000, though modeled on previous versions, included a complete re-write of the firmware. The REX 6000 does not support

handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwriting, handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens ...

and to enter data, a virtual keyboard is used. The standard REX 6000 has an American keyboard layout, although third-party software allows for other keyboard layouts. The pre-installed software for the Rex consists of the following: *

Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...

* Address book * To-do list * Notebook * World clock * Calculator Third-party software ("add-ins") include games, painting programs, spreadsheets and replacements or improvements of the pre-installed software. Most third-party software has been developed in spare time by interested users using customized versions of the Z88DK

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

or the Small Device C Compiler (SDCC). The earliest release of the REX 6000 had 1 MB of

flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, 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 t ...

, while later releases doubled this to 2 MB. (Earlier REXes stored user data in RAM with the operating system in ROM.) The REX has 32 KB of RAM, but only 12 KB is available for application developers. It uses a 4.3 MHz

Toshiba is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

compatible to the

Zilog Z80 The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog that played an important role in the evolution of early personal computing. Launched in 1976, it was designed to be Backward compatibility, software-compatible with the ...

, has a 240 × 120

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...

monochrome LCD, and is capable of providing beep sounds to deliver alarms and reminders. The REX 6000 is powered by two button-type CR2016

lithium Lithium (from , , ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard temperature and pressure, standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the ...

cells. Around 2002 Intel acquired Xircom and subsequently discontinued this product line.

External links

*
The Rex 6000 Help Page
(February 2012 version on the Internet Archive
The Rex 6000 Help Page

Rex 6000 website with addins and other useful info.A forum for Rex discussion

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rex 6000 Personal digital assistants Citizen Watch