HP 200LX
Surprise - I’m coming in hot with a brand new “Zscaler Logo On An Old Computer” post! Today I’m featuring the HP 200LX, a *tiny* ‘palmtop PC’ released in 1994 and powered by a pair of “AA” batteries. Despite its diminutive size, this is a fully IBM-compatible computer running Microsoft DOS 5.0 (it boots from a ROM disk) with a range of handy built-in apps, including a terminal emulator which became an essential part of this project.
Getting the Zscaler logo onto this machine was a serious challenge, as it was *not* primarily designed for graphical applications. I used a serial cable to connect it to a “RS232” - a little battery-powered gadget that connects to modern WiFi networks while ‘talking’ to a vintage computer over a serial line, using the traditional “Hayes-compatible” dial-up modem instruction set. From there, I installed some *very* complicated software on my modern PC, and essentially launched my own 1980’s style Bulletin Board System (“BBS”), complete with the ASCII-art rendition of the Zscaler logo seen in the first pic.
Once I had all that working, I used the terminal app on the HP palmtop computer to tell the RS232 to “dial in” to my new BBS over my home wifi network. From there, I was able to download a tiny (~45 kilobyte) shareware picture-viewing app designed to run on first-gen IBM clones, and an equally-tiny GIF image of the Zscaler logo seen in the second pic. Of course, to really show off I took the HP with me when my family took an evening drive over to the Pacific Coast a few days ago - I have to assume that this is the first time a battery-powered DOS PC has been at that beach in a long while…
I love this itty-bitty little computer, and hope you all get a kick out of this wildly-impractical (but fun!) project. Happy Friday!
