Philips in2it prototype handheld

In 1996, Philips of Netherlands designed a handheld & electronic organizer device mainly aimed to be "an educational but fun tool for girls". About a hundred of these were manufactured and given out internally at Philips for testing. Also known as Philips KidCom. About 5 of these were used in Finland in a study about what children think about using a device for something like messaging and other things.

- Address book
- Match couples according to birthdays
- Calculate "Biorhythms"
- Alarm clock
- Calculator
- Draw program (one or two 'players')
- Making tunes (songs)

It was a pretty complete package with credit card -like cartridges and manuals in Dutch and German. The carts on the picture are : Basics "Key", Basics "CodeX", Basics "Box", Style something, Sports & Hobbies "GameC....", 2 other Basics "Box" ones, Discovery "Trip Around...", Sports & Hobbies "???", Specials "Create a Card", Boyzone, Basics " Sketch ...", You .. "Friend F...". The manual cover reads "In2It KennenLernen Your Best Friend!" The purple box is for storing the console and the orange one for the cards. Also a green one exists.

"Box" ones are meant for storing data and the 
"Key" one for personalizing/protecting your data.

The machine can work in multiple languages and has an infrared port to transfer messages between two handhelds. The monochrome screen has a touch-screen function, much like the Tiger Game.com. Also the existence of a developer kit and material is known.

One can only speculate about the specifications, but the resemblance to Apple Newton would point to an ARM processor. If anyone wants to sell one of these to PKP for a cheap price, let me know ;)

Big thanks to Arnoud Helmantel! Pics (c) A.H.