i-mate Pocket PC

The Pocket PC is a development from previous calculator-sized computers. Keystroke-programmable calculators which could do simple business and technical applications were available by the 1970s. In 1982, Hewlett Packard's HP-75 included a 1-line text display, an alphanumeric keyboard, BASIC language and some basic PDA capability. The HP 200Lx sequence packed a PC-compatible DOS computer with graphics show and QWERTY keyboard into a palmtop format.

The Omni go 100 used a pen and graphics interface on DOS, but was not widely accepted. The HP 300LX built a palmtop computer on the Windows CE operating system, but not awaiting the form factor and features of the Palm platform were adapted did it become known as the "Pocket PC". The HDD is used by a computer to store operating system (OS) and the user's data. Fierce competition between the drive manufacturers has pressed the cost of one MB of data to a very small number of $1 to $2 per MB making a HDD of several GB in capacity relatively inexpensive and easily affordable by almost anyone. The HDD is one of the most important components of the modern PC: no application will run reasonably without the hard drive. The HDD works by the technology called magnetic footage, the principles of which will be discussed in the next chapter.