Pocket Viewer

Pocket Viewer (Casio PV) was a model range of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed by Casio around the turn of the 21st Century.

Description

Pocket Viewer was a model range of PDAs from Casio. Early models used Intel x86 based processors (manufactured by NEC). Later models used Hitachi processors from the SuperH family. Both models ran Casio's proprietary OS 'CASIO PVOS'. The functionality of the pocket viewers extended beyond the digital diary segment and targeted consumers who needed more compute power in their personal organizers. The pocket viewers competed directly with the then market leader in the segment the Palm-pilots. They were priced under $200 at first release.

The pocket viewers, weighing under 5 ounces, were light and portable. The face of the device was almost entirely covered by a monochrome liquid crystal display. Towards the bottom of the LCD there were a few navigation keys. The lower most part of the LCD had quick short cuts to the standard applications permanently indicated. The short-cuts include off, back-light, Scheduler, Contacts, Quick Memo, Sync Start, Escape, Menubar. The standard applications available on the pocket viewer include Expense, PVsheet, Quickmemo, Contacts, Scheduler, ToDo list, Reminder/Calendar and Alarm. The starting interface consisted of a scrollable two column list of icons. Clicking on the icon starts the application. Text was entered via an on-screen keyboard. The pocket viewer did not have in-built hand writing recognition support. A third party GPL addin PVMerlin may have attempted to provide hand writing recognition.