HOMECOMING
Here arrived my Sigmarion III, the 3rd generation of Handheld PCs by DoCoMo (a major mobile service provider in Japan).
I won the bidding on
the Japanese Yahoo auctioning site. This item only cost a bit more than 5,000 yen. An excellent deal in my opinion. In fact, from time to time the Japanese sellers would describe their listed items as "junk". However, more often than not things would turn out to be (much) better than expected. I have a very high respect for the Japanese for how they take great care of things they own, especially collection items and gadgets. As you can see, everything is in such an excellent condition. If the box had been (re-)shrinkwrapped I would even have believed that this is a (like-)new machine!
No scratches, not even dust inside...
A quick comparison of Sigmarion III and HP's Jornada 720, one of the most famous and highly rated Handheld PCs.
Regarding the screens, Sig III's is taller, whereas is J720 is wider. Personally I would prefer J720's because it seems to help me become more focused when typing on the device.
Lining up Sigmarion III, Jornada 720, and Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1.
The very first thing to tackle before powering on the machine is to check the power source. Since Sigmarion III was produced in and sold within Japan only, the power plug is of course of 100% Japanese type.
Since my country is operating on 220V, a stepdown transformer is a must, unless you can't wait to toast the AC adapter.
Having done a bit research on the general state of this kind of old machines, seeing this screen is kinda expected. Main battery dead. Backup battery depleted. Time is so unforgiving...
So what to do? While the backup battery keeps being charged on AC power (needs half a day at least), the next rational step is to rebuild the dead main battery.
To be continued in Part II
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