PC Mechanic, New Article

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 09:00 AM PST

contura What’s now known as the netbook originally made its appearance as a subnotebook several years prior. If you worked in a corporate environment back in the mid-to-late 1990s, the one you probably remember is the Compaq Contura Aero in 4/25 (486/25MHz) and 4/33 (486/33MHz) flavors. You may also remember the the 410C and 410CX models.

The Contura Aero didn’t really catch on because the time wasn’t right for a super-small portable of this type. Wireless networking more or less didn’t exist, and the fact the unit didn’t have a floppy drive was a major drawback, although one could be plugged in via proprietary accessory PCMCIA card.

Also bear in mind the latest/greatest OS at the time was MS-DOS/Windows 3.1. It is true the little Contura Aero could run Windows 95, but just barely.

Another major drawback of the Contura Aero was its screen, which simply put was horrible. It was completely unreadable in sunlight and ghosted like crazy. This is one of those displays where you absolutely must have pointer trails turned on for the mouse else you’ll lose it easily, even in 640×480 resolution. And if you’re wondering whether a display of this type will cause you dizziness, headaches and so on, yes it will. But hey, at least it was in color.

Here’s a video of the Contura Aero in action: