Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) were all the rage. Starting at around £39.99 and going up to £500+ if you fancied a PSION Series 5!
The Olivetti D1010 was at the lower end of the market so I would guesstimate it retailed at around the £39.99 mark. The copyright message inside the manual says ©1992 so I guess that's approximately the release date.
I came across this one (complete with the original manual) from an eBay purchase of a job lot of laptops and it's been on my 'goods in' shelf gathering dust for a while now so I thought it's about time I take a look at it and see if it still works..
First things first, lets take a look inside the manual to see what batteries it takes..
So it seems there is a backup battery in this PDA so that as long as the backup battery is OK, when you change the main 2 batteries, all your saved data is not lost.
Lets do the Backup Battery first (CR2016):
Then on to the 2 main batteries (CR2025):
As there was neither any main batteries nor backup batteries installed there is no data on this device so when powering it on the message RESET? (Y/N) appeared:
Then, the date and the time need setting:
It took me a while to change the A (for AM) to a P (for PM) as it's hidden on the 'M' key (I was pressing the space button thinking that would do it):
It's alive!!
Wireless transfers had not been invented yet (that sort of technological advancement was light years away) so you had to use a Data Transfer cable that was connected to both your old and new device and then follow these 'simple' instructions:
Easy eh?! Nowadays when you replace your Smartphone with a new one it transfers all the data for you wirelessly like magic but we were not so lucky back in the 1990s when you'd have to transfer one item at a time ensuring you following the instructions correctly.
Then on to the 2 main batteries (CR2025):
As there was neither any main batteries nor backup batteries installed there is no data on this device so when powering it on the message RESET? (Y/N) appeared:
It took me a while to change the A (for AM) to a P (for PM) as it's hidden on the 'M' key (I was pressing the space button thinking that would do it):
It's alive!!
The Olivetti D1010 has the following features:
- Telephone Contacts
- Business Card Mode
- Memo Mode
- Schedule MOde
- Calendar
- Home Time
- World Time
- Anniversary Mode
- Expenses Manager
- Calculator
- Metric Conversion Mode
- Currenct Conversion Mode
- Secret Code Mode
- Alarm
- Dictionary
- Copy Function
- Communication Function (Data Transfer Mode)
Out of all those features the one that stands out the most is the last one, the Communication Function. One major issue with early PDAs is that if you wanted to buy a new model with more features and storage you would have to manually re-enter ALL of your data in to your new device! With a Communication Function you can easily transfer all your data to a new compatible Olivetti PDA.
Wireless transfers had not been invented yet (that sort of technological advancement was light years away) so you had to use a Data Transfer cable that was connected to both your old and new device and then follow these 'simple' instructions:
Easy eh?! Nowadays when you replace your Smartphone with a new one it transfers all the data for you wirelessly like magic but we were not so lucky back in the 1990s when you'd have to transfer one item at a time ensuring you following the instructions correctly.