The REX 6000 is an ultra-thin
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) produced by
Xircom, and later
Intel, from about 2000 to 2001. Its primary claim to fame is as "The world's smallest full-function PDA", due to its unusual physical configuration as a
PC card
In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and devel ...
Type-II card (8.57 × 5.40 × .5 cm; 40
g). 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.
In addition, it is possible to remove and install executable code (including both custom applications and the
operating system itself). As with the earlier models, the REX 6000 hardware was developed by the
Citizen Watch Company of
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 ...
, 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 and to enter data, a
virtual keyboard is used. The standard REX 6000 has an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
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 date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...
*
Address book
* To-do list
*
Notebook
A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking.
History
...
*
World clock
A world clock is a clock which displays the time for various cities around the world.
The display can take various forms:
*The clock face can incorporate multiple round analogue clocks with moving hands or multiple digital clocks with numeric ...
*
Calculator
An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics.
The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...
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 or the
Small Device C Compiler (SDCC).
The earliest release of the REX 6000 had 1
MB of
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 ...
, 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 microprocessor compatible to the
Zilog Z80, has a 240 × 120
pixel monochrome LCD
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but in ...
, and is capable of providing beep sounds to deliver alarms and reminders. The REX 6000 is powered by two button-type CR2016
lithium 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.Intel's official Rex 6000 pageA forum for Rex discussion
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rex 6000
Personal digital assistants
Citizen Watch