Hammerhead 586 slate PC

Ruggedised slate PC – AMD “586” @ 133MHz, 32MB RAM, 1GB CF boot drive

I picked this computer up off eBay for $26. This beast is machined from a single block of aluminium (years before Apple!!). It is a bit of a slug, especially running Windows 98, but it’s more than capable of running solitaire which is great with the touch screen. Because it uses a magnetic touch screen it only works with the stylus, I’ve been spoilt by capacitive touch screens and I still get caught out trying to use it with fingers…

Not long after I got it up and running the hard drive died. This was a big deal as I hadn’t yet copied the contents of the drive, and after trawling the web couldn’t find a great deal of information about it nor any drivers. Luckily I managed to revive the drive for long enough to copy the contents using the freezer trick. I replaced the drive with a 1GB compact flash card, as a bonus it runs a little faster and the battery lasts a bit longer.