Dec 14 2008
Ergo Audrey
This is an Ergo 3Com Audrey. And it’s an oldie, but a goodie.
I own one of these beautiful little pieces of machinery, and I still don’t regret its purchase. It’s one of the first touchscreen internet appliances that was mass-produced. Rosie even gave them away on her show once! (That should tell you how old they are.) I was lucky enough to find a floor model on display at Best Buy. I bought it, took it home, annnnd it broke. But even though it was a floor model, I bought the extended warranty, and when they couldn’t fix it, I was able to use the purchase price towards my current desktop (which is ancient, but still kicking). Later, I bought a replacement Audrey off the internet.
The Audrey was perfect. You could set it up to check your email, and a light at the top would light up the stylus whenever you had new email. There were all the goodies that are standard to a PDA, such as a calendar, notepad, etc. And there was internet surfing. It came with a mini wireless keyboard that fit on the back, and I think it was the perfect design. It stayed nice and neat, and out of the way. And there were also pre-programmed channels. These let you go to some of the biggest sites on the internet with the turn of a dial. Not to mention how CUTE it is!
But the Audrey never caught on.
About a month before I got my first one, the company stopped making and supporting them. That’s why I got the good deal. And unfortunately, that meant that the channels stopped working without hacking it. When you stop and think about it, it’s with good reason that they went under. I mean, even to this day, some of the biggest sites of 2000 are on my Audrey, available as channels. Think about that for a second. 2000…DotCom Bust… Lots of the biggest sites going under…
Furthermore, it was always available as an option to buy a special cord and make your Audrey wireless. But A) shouldn’t that have been built in, B) $50 to go wireless, and C) you couldn’t find the cord for sale anywhere. Which meant this lovely touchscreen device that promised to allow me to be able to check for recipes in the kitchen was tied to my phone line in the living room. Sure, I could put in another phone line. Which made it even more expensive. And in my 100 year old house, it would mean breaking into plaster or doing an ugly fix.
Audrey still has a serious fanbase. There are sites that will sell you one, hack it open and install a wireless card, and upgrade the memory for you. And one of these days, when I get enough money saved for it (more than I ever spent on the original device), I’m totally going to do it!!
