Open Source PC110

This is the project to reverse engineer the legendary IBM Palmtop PC110.

This machine was a revolutionary grandfather of a lot of machines that followed without this there wouldn’t be the GPD Pocket or Sony Vaio’s

A collaboration between IBM and Ricoh aka Rios and ahead of its time way before things like sub notebooks and netbooks had ever been considered.

This machine by modern standards is old technology, but you only have to look at the success of the pocket 8086 and book 8088 and Tiny Llama and ITX Llama to see the relevance of a machine of this calibre.

The original specs of the IBM Palmtop PC are as follows : Intel 486sx 33mhz, 4.7inch DSTN colour display, 8- 20mb ram, up to 260mb hard disk ,compact flash, pcmcia, built in modem, sound blaster sound,1 x infrared - IrDA, 1 x modem - phone line - RJ-11, 1 x docking, 1 x microphone - input - mini-phone mono 3.5 mm , 1 x audio - line-out/headphones - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, 2 x PCMCIA II / 1 x PCMCIA III, Parallel Port, VGA, Phone line, Headphone

This was a fully functional 1995 desktop pc the size of a VHS tape! A true forerunner to compact computing and revolutionary machine.

So here is the why, these machines are now at the point where failure is happening, certain machines are failing through age, capacitors are leaking, damage from battery leakage has killed a number of motherboards and of course vinegar syndrome has claimed a number of the screens.

The team consists of Kevin Moonlight who took the designs and ideas of Taka Uno (Japan) and further developed the interfaces that went to the DSTN screen and identified the Bios changes required for changing the PC110 screen to TFT. This led to kits being made available and distributed via Gadget Retro via Andy Curtis. Andy furthered this process of getting the screen bezel injection moulded and getting the kits for sale which allowed a great many machines to be resurrected.

Kevin has been an instrumental driving force in the ongoing project as well as being an innovator in many other projects of his own.

Ahmad Byagowi, has been the powerhouse behind driving this project forward. The absolute insatiable appetite by Ahmad had perhaps initially been underestimated. Ahmad has great pedigree from Open Compute Project and Open Time Server and Time Card 2. He’s also been very active in supporting other projects such as the Tiny Llama project

Finally I’m Mike Lycett and one of the team that has been investigating the reverse engineering of the IBM Palmtop PC110 my role has been more investigative, supportive and generally helping to keep the project moving. I had history of being the first person outside of Japan attempted to hand wire one of Taka’s boards and to encourage Taka to implement a PCB for the screen connectivity to TFT. So naturally getting Kevin and Ahmad collaborating further was definitely on my radar.

I very much have an interest in this machine owning a PC110 from the late nineties and remaining fascinated ever since.

To date the team have manually sanded down each layer of the board to follow all traces on the pcb of the motherboard. The chips have been removed and interrogated and contents read, unknown chips de-lided by laser and optically scanned. Many more interrogation is ongoing and investigation has been ongoing and continues to progress. There is a full project in GitHub with plans ready for the first of the pcb’s to be manufactured for test.

https://github.com/ahmadexp/Open-Source-PC110

Fred Nielsen and his team from Control Laser Corporation with Rodger (RenJie) Liu provided us with the IC decapping capabilities to find out about missing pinouts that we had no documentation about

We have also had the time of John McMaster from SiliconPr0n to get some high resolution images of the chipset. So many amazing people have been lending their talent to helping the project cause

What we hope to achieve, a lasting legacy, repairs, replacements, and upgrades.

Along with the ability to save some of the ailing machines that are still turning up in Japan, we should be able to reproduce the original motherboard, this should allow for restoration of failing machines with a simple drop in replacement board. Secondly all aspects of the machine will be reverse engineered. The power supply, the modem, the memory and the dock and more.

Aspirational stretch goals, upgrades!

Upgraded main boards, more functionality, Wi-Fi enablement, new docks, increased memory and so much more, many ideas are being discussed it is all achievable and more.

We have discovered secrets, did you know there was functionality there to connect a scanner! Roms containing character sets and more.

The full pcb is ready for some prototypes to be manufactured but it is not only costly but it is still experimental, each run is a multi layer board and we are looking at $1200 for the first prototypes and that gets us 5 pcbs..

Theres still lots to do and so many aspirational goals to get to with this project we are at the verge of the 30 year mark for this machine and with this work we make it immortal. It shall outlive any battery damaged board and the future it will hold will only be open to the imagination and interest of the vintage computing community.

It may even be possible to recreate new replicas and even build on top of the legacy that it left. You only have to see the impact of the videos released by LGR, Clint did a great job of publicity and after that initial video many more you tubers followed and the unit prices for the PC110 out of Japan Sky-rocketed.

The time is right for a revival and restoration is imminent. Now we need the power of the community to keep the legacy alive.

So give a little or give a lot and let’s keep this landmark machine’s legacy going for maybe another 30years and beyond.

This project made Hack A Day!

https://hackaday.com/2025/04/06/reverse-engineering-the-ibm-pc110-one-pcb-at-a-time/