Last updated - October 4, 2001

The Early Years

There was a 64KB REX. However the first one I ever recall seeing, and definitely the first I ever owned, was the REX 3 with 256KB. I have never seen a 64KB REX, but I have talked to a couple of people who claim to have seen them - and they say that they were in the PC Card form factor.

For a long time, I erroneously thought the first REX was another device entirely that came out in 1990 or early 1991. It was a brushed metal brass-tone case clamshell device about the size of a cigarette case with a rubberized membrane keyboard in the bottom half of the clamshell and a large LCD in the top half. It was manufactured by a company by the name of Tele-Art I think, and was marketed as the Pocket Electrodex under the Rolodex Electronics name if memory serves me correctly. It ran on button cells, had 64k of memory/storage, and had two infrared LEDs, one on each side, which could be used to send or receive records to other identical devices, or to a companion desktop device in the shape of a Rolodex rotary cardfile with an where the cards would be and those classic Rolodex spinning knobs on each side to scroll through the records.

The desktop device was called the Electrodex Plus and it could also dial out on a single telephone line! The Pocket Electrodex could also beam records back and forth to a little triangle-shaped grey docking device with a cord that connected to the parallel port of the PCs of that era. There was also a very crude DOS based utility to edit and do import/exports from the desktop.

A Dallas-based company called DacEasy made a DOS software product called "Rolodex Live" that was a strong competitor to the dominant PC PIM of the day, "SideKick 2", by Borland. "Rolodex Live" could use the little triangle-shaped grey docking device to import from or export to the Pocket Electrodex or Electrodex Plus devices. (No synchronization!) These DOS based PIMs were very advanced for their day - and we were grateful to have them back then, but they are absolute junk by today's standards.

And what about this! (From Di.) "

"Maybe the grand-grand-pa of the DataSlim2 - Mb280 (below, middle). 7 years ago I bought it in Moscow. At that time it was the first credit card size PDA. 2kb of memory!!!"

And cjh noted that "The MB-280 looks like the Franklin Flash PC Companion (above right), which you can still buy for $15 or so.

When Phillipe Kahn left Borland, he started Starfish and he redeveloped the SideKick product for Windows and pursued integration with a device to carry PC data and to view it remotely. That was the era of the first PC Card form-factor devices, and they carried the "REX" moniker, allegedly a diminutive of "Rolodex". Some wonder about how the Rolodex brand name was connected to the REX products. I don't know the whole story, but the early (1997) REX 3 devices carried a lot of credits printed on the back of the case, including this: "Rolodex is a registered trademark of Sterling Plastics Co., a subsidiary of Newell Co." (Starfish's synchronization products - TrueSync, TrueSync Desktop, TrueSync Plus - became the focus of Starfish development efforts and I believe were the main reason Starfish was acquired by Motorola.)

Back to the Pocket Electrodex. These things were widely marketed in office supply stores and chains, consumer electronics stores, and Radio Shack outlets for a number of years in the 1990s. A later pocketable product (made by Tele-Art I think) was shown, but never released so far as I know, that included a little built in pop-up RJ-11 telephone connector that was designed to send faxes as well as do the other functions of the Pocket Electrodex in a smaller form factor.

There was also a very crude little black and yellow plastic organizer card that I believe was also by Tele-Art and before Citizen or Franklin or Starfish came into the picture. It had incredibly limited storage, an LCD the size of a calulator, and NO external connectivity. It was about the size of or smaller than a PC Card.

I am not clear on when the original REX (64KB) was released or how widely it was released, but I assume it was Citizen who manufactured it and it was Franklin who was responsible for (mis-)managing the marketing. The original REX (64KB) is truly a missing link in the long and tumultuous history of organizers bearing the Rolodex name in one form or another. I would love to see one, or even just see a photo of one - and I would like to hear from someone who used one.

Finally, I should mention that I believe that Franklin continued to market several more limited function organizers under the Rolodex name even after they sold the REX line to Xircom in 1999. These devices were all ahead of their time, especially the Pocket Electrodex and, frankly, didn't work very well. If your frame of reference is only the era of the Palm OS and Windows CE devices, then it is hard to appreciate the 1.00 version of the REX 6000. If you have a longer frame of reference, then the REX 6000 is easily seen as the first release of a new generation of organizers.