Running on a 486 CPU : Nokia's 1998 Smartphone

Here I am trying to fix a Nokia 9110 Communicator from 1998. I think this is the first ever phone to use BGA chip technology, that we still use to this day.
I'm glad I tried this phone, and I love the electroluminescent greyscale LCD. But like life, things don't exactly go to plan.
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[@mjglax]

It was 1999 and I vividly remember this launched in India. As a big NOKIA fan myself, holding this phone for the first time felt surreal, it was a luxury back then to own this phone. This phone has fantastic pocket computer futuristic features that were impossible to think of during those days. It was all about NOKIA those days and brings such nostalgia now. Thank you for taking us back to those wonderful days

[@zoolkhan]

ex-nokia person here from finland, i have that phone amongst many others (and still in working condition) interesting to see that people still care :)

[@JanusCycle]

Nokia made some amazing phones during this period. You can bet that many people loved their Nokia phones and will never forget that period in their life. There are many people in the comments here talking about how much they loved having this phone. Thank you for making them.

[@RetroKarim]

❤ Nokia

[@RetroKarim]

@@JanusCycle thanks 😊

[@DarikCr]

I literally died finding bas9k for it (the author has removed it from the internet in 2002, feeling against Nokia that they didn't give him money). Fortunately I did

[@ephektz]

“There’s no port for Doom…” Well, yea, but now you’ve summoned the graybeards.

[@SomethingSomewhereJustOnce]

Someone just ran DOOM on bacteria cells. I don't understand the science behind it but still that's mad! 😂😂

[@dankmeme73]

​@SomethingSomewhereJustOnce they rendered doom on a cell they just used it as a display screen with a very slow refresh rate

[@aarocka11]

@@SomethingSomewhereJustOnce there is a KZbinr that goes by the name of the thought emporium that is currently in the process of growing rat neurons to build a system that can play doom. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mHa7lpmal7Z3oNksi=eSUTorGkbJkCkjN4

[@dancoroian1]

Man, can't even imagine how cool and futuristic it would have felt to use this at any point in '98-2000!

[@yamgoat2965]

Yeah it was awesome, the one that came after it i think had a colour screen, but i remember using a nokia like this around 2001-2002 and it was the maddest device to play snake on at that time. I was only 11, my god if i'd known how timelessly cool it was.

[@Deontjie]

Nokia 9500, then E90.

[@6581punk]

I had one in 2001. The 9110i. The most impressive thing for me was wav file ringtones. But the speakerphone was great too. It was just before the time of GPRS, so you had to dial up to use the internet.

[@6581punk]

@@yamgoat2965 The 9210. I got mine in 2002 (still have it, but obviously not in use). It wasn't Snake you played on that but a cool puzzle game called Bounce. The 9210 was kinda weak in the RAM department and so didn't run as smooth as the 9110i did.

[@lucag.lisickza425]

yeah i used and still have. you looked dope

[@TheFlyingBusman]

Fantastic piece of kit in its day. I owned one for a short while and were blown away by its innovations. Nokia really were top of their game in the 90’s.

[@duartesimoes508]

Nokia reigned supreme rather from the beginning of the Millennium to 2011, when their C models started to be sold riddled with bugs. As if this wasn't outrageous enough, a new Company called _Blackberry_ came up around that time, offering very affordable push email, Internet and free texting among the same manufacturer. (BBM) Nokia had nothing like it. Even today I carry a BlackBerry with me everyday as a back up, but they're now mere communicators, only capable of calls and texting. All other RIM capabilities are gone; but a BlackBerry is made to last, reliable, small, light, and will work just fine in direct sunlight thanks to its keypad, unlike all other smartphones. 😀

[@HuseynMemmedov]

Your obscure tech videos are so satisfying to watch. I love old Nokia phones and collecting them as much as I can.

[@JanusCycle]

Old Nokias are awesome. i'm always looking out for them.

[@HuseynMemmedov]

For example, I have Nokia N91 with the world’s smallest HDD and one of the first smartphones with Wi-Fi.

[@another3997]

​@@HuseynMemmedovWiFi in mobile devices was around long before the N91 appeared. But like many technologies, it is only useful if lots of other popular devices have it too... and WiFi was a technology that didn't immediately take off. It developed as a "standard" and gained acceptance gradually. Nowadays everyone uses it, but back then it was just another bit of interesting tech vying for a slice of the pie.

[@pulmonary_yoghurt]

I had one of these when I was around 10 years old. Without a computer to connect it to, or a memory card, I was stuck with what was on the device. I made some monotone masterpieces with the music composer program and also had my first encounter with programming, as I figured out you could write HTML documents and then view them. I recall sitting in a library, studying this massive HTML tome and typing things into the communicator, and some guy asked me what on earth I was doing. Thanks for the video, I'd forgotten about this cute little device :)

[@JanusCycle]

That is an awesome way to start learning programming :)

[@victortruong1524]

Dame man ! At 10 years old I play GTA san andreas ! You are so damn smart ❤❤

[@Ben-yz4jh]

This device was the first piece of tech I truly coveted. Even now, 25 years later.. I still want one! Thanks for the great video!

[@SonicBoone56]

I didn't even know it existed until a few years ago and I can agree! I really want a modern phone sized laptop to do some tiny desktop-only work on.

[@ukeyaoitrash2618]

​@@SonicBoone56there is a ton of windows handhelds: gpd win 3, Aya neo, Asus ROG ally extreme (a Windows 11 game handheld 7 inch with about the power of a ps5!) etc

[@kriss3d]

Amazing. This old guy was more powerful than my first pc back in the days. A 486 sx 25mhz

[@kimnice]

8MB ram is also decent amount

[@JamieBainbridge]

My first computer was a TRS 80. First DOS PC was an XT 4.77 MHz. Having a handheld 486 in like 2001 is still unbelievable to me!

[@Zerbey]

I had a 9000i and 9110i, they were ridiculously ahead of their time. I was a UNIX sysadmin at the time, and being able to SSH into my servers from anywhere from my cell phone was just amazing. Also worked as a modem, so I could tether that to my regular PC.

[@JanusCycle]

That is cool, and I hadn't considered would tethering would have been like in the 90s.

[@cocusar]

Wow, interesting approach to make a cellphone. Also, it shows the difficulties of being early adopters of BGA and/or ROHS. Also, amazingly that it runs GEOS, I'm just out of words of the stuff packed in this phone

[@kaitlyn__L]

Still predates ROHS quite a bit! BGA, and flexing thin boards, seemed to have been enough of a challenge on their own ;)

[@32herz]

I inherited one of these from my dad, it was coolest phone ever :D didn't really use any of the "smart" features except the ring tone composer (yes, you inserted actual notation in an app to make a ringtone)

[@Ratoo]

Nokia 9 series are always like this, more modern 9300 / 9500 runs S40 on outside and S80 on inside. Only the latest and last E90 run same system - S60.

[@6581punk]

GEOS UI running on top of a non-Microsoft flavour of DOS.

[@dancoroian1]

@@32herz wow, how awesome is that! I would've wasted countless hours creating my own (basic tone) compositions, no doubt. Was it polyphonic at least?

[@AdmiralSym]

I’m right there with you on wanting a grayscale lcd like that paired with modern hardware. I recently received a Sharp Wizard organizer that I’d love to see updated with a pi zero or something. In the meantime, I’m working on a similar style of device built around a 4.7” phone-sized epaper panel

[@JanusCycle]

That sounds like an awesome project. Please share your e-paper device with us when you are ready!

[@SonicBoone56]

E-paper displays are far more resilient and longlasting compared to grayscale LCDs right?

[@AdmiralSym]

@@SonicBoone56 I'm not knowledgeable enough on the specifics, but LilyGo (manufacturer of the ESP32-based panel I own) suggests limiting the amount of partial refreshes to not degrade the panel. I own a 10.3" color e-ink tablet by Boox which supports fast refreshes and that's fantastic. I guess it differs between panel types. On the monochrome/grayscale end of things, I began a project for making an ESP32 based smartwatch with a 128x62 graphical LCD panel. Not sure what it is but I just prefer the look!

[@GeomancerHT]

@@SonicBoone56 but far slower, it all depends on what you want to do. Also electroluminiscense is very cool compared with plain eink backlight or side light.

[@adrianmarianpopoviciu215]

You can make an Android phone gray scale from developer settings. Combine that with an OLED screen and you also get a slightly improved battery life.

[@itxofficial8281]

As a former collector of old Nokia phones, I gotta say that the communicators are definitely the pride of my collection. My 9110 is in immaculate condition, I bought it with the original box and some of its original accessories were still sealed - leading to the conclusion that its original owner barely used it. After seeing the first part of this video, I was right about to send you a message offering you my 9110 for a future update video - thank god you found another working one for part 2! 😜👍

[@narutrixil]

It runs FreeDOS?! I would love to see a modern take on grey (green) scale LCDs, I wonder by how much these simple LCDs can save power and extend battery life. And yes, more videos on Nokia communicators are more than welcome

[@Dr-Zed]

LCDs mostly need power for the backlight. The OG Game Boy would last 10-20 hours on 2 AA batteries because it didn't have a backlight.

[@brietman_]

Maybe fun for a Casio smartwatch

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@Dr-Zed and the Playdate can last about a week!

[@Pathofplenty]

Samsungs have a super power saving mode that makes the screen black and white which comes close.

[@DarikCr]

Well, it runs ROMDOS originally but I believe it should run FreeDOS as well from the MMC card

[@philosynth]

Incredible discovery! I had no idea that the Nokia 9110 Communicator used an AMD 486 CPU and ran DOS. It's definitely inspired me to dust off mine and explore the possibilities! I've actually used mine years ago as a serial console for Sparc servers. The projects mentioned in the video sound intriguing, and I had no idea this little machine had such extensive possibilities. Thanks for sharing this insightful journey - it's reignited my curiosity about the Nokia 9110! 🔍💻

[@JanusCycle]

Yep, it's really cool. The limitations are annoying though. I'm intrigued by your serial console use. You must have had a serial cable and terminal program running. Very cool.

[@Elmaghrabiz]

This reminds me of my Casio SF-7200SY digital organizer from the early 2000s. It has a similar display with the cool lighting and a whopping 2MB of internal storage, in a time when even 128KB organizers were not common. Thank you for bringing back nostalgic memories 😊.

[@luchitoplus]

Excellent video and yes please, do another one in the 9210, that was my business phone back in the old good times. Thanks.

[@JanusCycle]

I do hope I can get it working. I've heard about a DOOM port . .

[@Bs0Dd]

​@@JanusCycle Yes, there are two good Doom ports (Doom 9210 and cDoom). By sorting through archives saved by people, I managed to collect more than 200 programs and 80 games for S80 v1.0. There is a Rayman - early Gameloft's game which seems to me one of the best for 9210. Apparently, support for MIDP 1.0 was planned - an unfinished (beta) but mostly working Java machine was preserved. The 9210 was even used in the demoscene, I know at least the Finnish 3D demo "g-force 2001".

[@JanusCycle]

@Bs0Dd Thank you! I'm going to check these out when I have a working 9210.

[@superapple4ever]

I would absolutely love to see more videos on different communicator models. Thanks for this. Very uncommon. I wanted one so bad when I was a young teenager.

[@JanusCycle]

My only other Communicator, the 9210, is not yet working. But I'm keen!

[@datathunderstorm]

I still have one of these in my old phone archive. I had the time of my life rocking the Nokia 9110i. I had every single app available for this smartphone. I also upgraded to the Nokia 9210 eventually, but the 9110i was my true love!

[@DarikCr]

Don't you plan to share the software archive?

[@ddvantandar-kw7kl]

I believe this antique peace of mobile should be placed in museum for display .which will inspire others since the technology was much more ahread of its time .The foldable concept

[@yesterdaysrose5446]

Oh yeah, Nokia 9110, my first cell phone! It was incredibly capable piece of technology and I can't believe Nokia got so complacent with "basic phones" that they didn't go big and pursue a smartphone revolution of their own. Also I need to back up my phone one day. I have the cable somewhere, will probably need to fiddle around with my old PCs and software. OR if it has a card slot like you say, this should get so much easier. Edit: Oh and I didn't play Infocom games on my 9110. I wish I knew that was possible! I instead tried playing them on my Palm m100 series. Worked, but, well, ehhhh.

[@JanusCycle]

If you can find a 32mb or smaller capacity MMC that works in yours, then yes you can easily read that in any SD card slot.

[@cjmillsnun]

They tried with their Symbian phones (like the N95). Then the iPhone came out and changed everything. They weren't ready.

[@RestoreTechnique]

​@@cjmillsnunYeah, they tried competing with the 5800 Xpress Music, and the N8. I owned both of these, but eventually they couldn't compete.

[@Karaoke-Bear]

I am not sure why they sticked with symbian as it is so inferior compared to the windows phone (called windows mobile back then) then blackberry os, iphone os and android. It is slow (i got the 7650) and did not improve even after they released the N series except the camera and storage.

[@kiddhkane]

@@cjmillsnun They were too busy making fun of that little thing that just came out. What was the name? Oh right, Android.

[@Hezy]

Killed it again! You always find the things I’ve never seen before and it’s super neat! Love from the USA!

[@undivided_unified]

This was just so above and beyond its time... I held this in my hand and felt like Star Trek had come to life

[@Martepiece]

I didn't understand A WORD of what was said, but boy, how cool was to see this phone. I was a teenager back then and business men used to go around with these phones while driving Mercedes in Monaco

[@JanusCycle]

I'm glad you were able to enjoy this without needing to follow all the technical aspects.

[@Donatusification]

Old memories coming up about both 9110 and 9210 - my uncle had both of them one after another. Would love to see a video about 9210 too!

[@graealex]

You know, only days ago I had discussions about how reflow doesn't work, at least for BGA, as there isn't the proper process control. People still claimed that just cooking old solder would bring back their GPUs. There's simply no way around reballing, unless you can reach the joints from the top, or have a super-reliable process figures out.

[@simontay4851]

The problem with BGAs this that you can't see or get to the balls to inspect the joints. I hate BGA chips. QFP chips are much easier to repair.

[@graealex]

@@simontay4851 Exactly. Plus, old solder isn't really flowing anymore due to the oxide surface. You have to at least get plenty of flux under the IC, but then again, without any way of verifying what is happening, besides x-ray imaging.

[@JanusCycle]

I have reflowed smaller BGA chips and gotten devices working again. It's a risk though and often things stop working soon after.

[@overclocker3238]

Nokia was always ahead of it's time

[@rowaystarco]

I really really wanted a Nokia communicator back in the day. The form factor looked so cool. Later on I got a somewhat similar type of device in the HTC desire Z and the Nokia n900

[@shaunclarke94]

At least until the iPhone.

[@Flaggyt]

​@@rowaystarcoyeah I had one back in the days it was not as handy as it looks. But I loved tech so I had a new phone every 3 months back then. :) New phones were actually new back then. Today a new phones means it has slightly better camera software. *Yawn* And fanboys defending their multimillion company of choice for being so fantastic.

[@rowaystarco]

Yeah, phones used to be fun back in the day.@@Flaggyt

[@td4dotnet]

Those old Greyscale Backlit LCD displays are a treat! Such nostalgia! Thanks JC! I've been thinking about making a sort of re-imagined Palm PDA along similar lines... I suppose you can create a similar effect now with e-ink though.

[@JanusCycle]

Also check out Sharp Memory LCDs, the mirrored version is amazing.

[@zaprodk]

I had both the 9000 and 9110i back in the day. They are on display in a glass cabinet in my living room today :)

[@JanusCycle]

I love this!

[@First_Grafter]

Honey wake up, new Janus Cycle video

[@gingerfox4796]

Yes honey

[@another3997]

I told you, don't call me "honey" in public... just call me Mick. 😂

[@First_Grafter]

@@another3997 😂

[@aquariandawn4750]

Copycat

[@First_Grafter]

@@aquariandawn4750 :(

[@Ice_Karma]

Yes, with that many circuit boards, sandwiched that closely together, flex cracks in traces were a major issue, as it would also be with the later 82x0. My 8290 was my last Nokia.

[@Link-channel]

i LOVE your videos! Insta-subscribed! I like how the experience is REAL and relatable: at first you give up in frustration, but then you get back to it, like in the Linux Japanese handheld 💖

[@JanusCycle]

Hey thanks! I do get quite frustrated with retro tech sometimes. But it feels good to overcome that. I'm really glad you are enjoying these videos.

[@FR4M3Sharma]

Those small BGA chips were definitely RAM chips and even slight overheat to them just kills them, so It's not a good idea to reflow or reball them. The display was probably gltiching due to a bad ribbon cable or the fpc connector becoming lose because of the decaying plastic.

[@JanusCycle]

That's a good possible explanation of what went wrong. Makes me wonder how they solder such sensitive chips in the first place. I'm going to push back on there being bad ribbon cable. The phone would half boot and freeze with text on the screen and the display was ok.

[@FR4M3Sharma]

@@JanusCycle The way these were soldered by manufacturer was probably hot plates, also they heat them at the exact temperature the solder needs to melt. When reflowing BGA chips it is first advised to pre heat the board/PCB and then use the hot air gun to slowly melt away the solder underneat the chips while keeping the gun constantly moving at steady temperature, your usage of flux was correct. I was guessing on the display because I missed the part where the device was freezing, if that that's the case then those chips were definitely culprit and they were on their last legs, could've also been faulty chips from the manufacturer.

[@JanusCycle]

@@FR4M3Sharma I learned a lot from this phone. Thanks for your help.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@FR4M3Sharma yeah I was thinking the same until I noticed the boot process was totally different on the second phone. So these chips were probably cooked even before the heat gun, especially since some of the boots didn't even get as far as the text-mode bit in the first unit.

[@RichsRandomRetroReviews]

I loved these phones but they were always so out of reach for those of us who weren't 'businessmen'. I did manage to scratch that itch though with the E90 - I had briefly but it was too big for my pocket and I ultimately got rid of it. Great video - I enjoyed it.

[@boostedwilliam8923]

One of my favorite Nokia from the late 90s Great video as always👍🏼

[@phoenixbird7579]

I tell now after all these years, it was a pleasure to use this phone back in the days, where it functioned exactly how you wanted, no smart crap and no google/apple owning you, I miss those days.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

Bummer, you'd need custom stencils to reball that phone. A glorious piece of 90s mobility.

[@Audiojack_]

I have a 9000 and a 9110 that work superficially (you can use the communicator part and navigate the phone menus with a test-SIM that my dad also provided), my dad used to repair these then-new Nokia and Ericsson devices and I got a bunch of the broken phones to use as toys. You can imagine how cool that was in the mid 90's to have one of these as a kid.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I always appreciate how you give things a go, even though sometimes it's hard to watch! (Like one of your first videos I watched, you'd glued something back together but waited until it had dried to remove the excess glue and it didn't quite all come off... something like that. That bothered me at the time haha.) But I'd prefer everyone learn with some mistakes than avoid fixing things, fixing stuff is important. And I've made plenty of mistakes too, even with regular through-hole soldering - such as while removing those modern super-miniature through-hole components with stubborn bad solder holding-on for dear life. I always knew the "computer" side of this was separate from the phone, with some communication such as for sending an address book number to the phone side. Didn't know it was a 486! It's pretty cool how quickly those became small enough for use in a phone. And used directly too, not like today where, yes, a modern ARM chip is faster than an old Pentium 4 but is also a totally different design.

[@JanusCycle]

We all learn different skills at different times in our life. Despite making interesting videos, you will continue to see me make the dumbest of mistakes at times. I appreciate you sticking through them. I learn a lot from reading the comments. My aim is that we all come out of this having learned something from each other.

[@TheClumsyFairy]

I used to manage a small ISP from one of these little beauties, it gave me the freedom to go anywhere pretty much but still be able to ssh onto my servers, and routers.. For the time they were utterly amazing. Also when everyone else at the time was texting with the number keys it was a total dream on the nokia..

[@dzikiwonsz22]

Looking at the casing - dry joints are most likely caused by some drop or something - housing is pretty smashed. :)

[@JanusCycle]

I did wonder about this. Nokia engineers surely would have designed their first BGA chip phone to be resilient enough for regular use. That board is just so thin though.

[@dzikiwonsz22]

@@JanusCycleBTW i'm now noticing - that smashed one has very unique blue printing next to buttons, also left side buttons are different than production version - could it be some prototype version? I've never seen 9110 with print like this before.

[@JanusCycle]

@ojciecnatoora It could be a 9110 vs 9110i thing. This phone was on sale for f̶o̶u̶r̶ two years. It's unlikely to be a prototype when found in someone's junk box in Australia. But you never know. Edit: I meant to say two years. 1998 to 2000.

[@a--b]

Thanks for making the beautiful video of this master-piece from Nokia

[@JanusCycle]

thank you :)

[@HouseOfFunQM]

In early 2010s, we had a phone in England called "Orange San Diego" It had an Intel Atom also, and the phone was absolute dog shit - nothing would run on it, and the battery life was like 5 hours on standby.

[@RFD3691]

I remember putting together my 486 AMD computer for $3000-$5000 dollars which was a lot for its time and capable of todays tech. This phone had all the technology. Very technologically advanced. Nowadays looks like a satellite phone. If Nokia adds an authentic Canadian Sounblaster OEM sound card I might buy it again for nostalgic purposes. Now back to Intel chips.

[@peterholst8875]

I had the 9110i and I LOVED it! The way you talked into it, from the backside made it so much more comfortable. However longer calls could be a problem due to the battery getting hot while touching your face directly. Replaced it eventually with a 9500, that I was not as happy with, and then later two E90s Wich I did like.

[@RicardoRamosRetrocomputacao]

I worked with BGA for many years, and I can tell you, you don't need the stencil to recover your cell phone. The advantage of remaking spheres on old things is that they use huge, easy to manipulate spheres. I mean, it may seem small, but today's computers use MUCH smaller spheres that are almost impossible to manipulate with tweezers and that stick to your thumbprint. Use adhesive aluminum tape to isolate the rest of the components from heat, as heat can cause problems with nearby chips.. Buy spheres, you can measure the spheres that were in it using a caliper, or try your luck with balls between .60 and .80. You need to desolder the chip, and clean both the chip and the board using a copper mesh, clean until you can run your finger through it without feeling any imperfections. Take a good pair of tweezers, apply a very small amount of flux to the chip (thin film) take a ball with the tweezers, position it, and apply heat until it melts just enough to not move when it cools. As there are few balls, you can do this artisanal process until you have soldered all the balls, then apply a thin layer to the PCB, and solder the chip.

[@JanusCycle]

Thanks for this, some very practical information here.

[@AlexPlusLEDS]

Regarding the BGA reflow. Some chips are sensitive to humidity. They need to be lightly baked (48-72 hours at 70c or so) to drive out moisure prior to slodering temps. Otherwise, the heat causes the trapped water vapor to expand and burst the chip. Sometimes you can hear a little pop or crackle. Part spec sheets usually call out MSL level type.

[@JanusCycle]

I have much to learn, thank you.

[@Tekwyzard]

Ah, thankyou, that explains a term I've seen used by Louis Rossman, "Popcorning', something that certain Apple authorised repair centres seemed to excel at doing.

[@wm69]

i love that my nokia 6700 slide is still working till this day. some parts was replaced, yet it still working like it was since day 1. i wish nowadays smartphone would last at least 10 years without being oudated and discontinued support.

[@admirerofclassicalelectron2858]

I used this Nokia 9110 from 1999 until around 2005 and I liked it very much. Yes, it was heavy and chunky! But it was worth it because of its usability. As you mentioned the display (and keyboard) was great and the interface was well designed.. Due to the slow and expensive mobile internet connection (9660 baud) web (and WAP) browsing was somewhat limited. In these years I used its fax capabilities quite often, telnet as well. And I tried to find any working DOS software as you. But almost no luck. The best results I got with self compiled programs, adopted to the CGA like (but not entirely) graphics. I still own my old Nokia communicator stored away. Perhaps I should restart it sometime just for fun. But modern SIM cards are not working because of the voltage requirements.

[@davidknoll]

Haha, WAP. The phone thing was what I thought of when the more recent song came out.

[@JanusCycle]

Wow, you used the 9110 for a long time. That must have been amazing at the time. You can still use the PDA side without a SIM if you decide to get it out.

[@ahmetcanaksu6821]

New model looks awesome

[@ugh.idontwanna]

I do love a good grayscale UX. I use a Sharp eNote for note-taking (and by note-taking I mean doodling). It's a fantastic device. I've had it for about a decade now and I've only recharged it a handful of times.

[@KINGSTONSPRIDE]

Thank you KZbin algorithm for putting this channel in my feed.

[@JanusCycle]

Thank you for enjoying these videos :)

[@SonicBoone56]

This is exactly the type of technology I'd love to have. A foldout laptop phone lol. And please make a video on the followup models.

[@DenverSovS]

Thanks for this video, nostalgia. Once upon a time I could only dream of such a phone and eagerly looked at it in the Nokia brand store. It was a very interesting time when this brand produced really high-quality phones. I used the Nokia E60 for a very long time and was incredibly happy. It was the best time, when manufacturers actually came up with something to interest the buyer, and not like now, when they release it with the thought that it will still find its buyer.

[@Leeki85]

GEOS for DOS used graphics driver file for each graphics card like VGA.GEO. It should be fairly simple to analyze driver used on this Nokia. Early PC Graphics cards had a lot in common. They had TextMode framebuffer and graphics mode framebuffer. They were located right above 640KB of conventional memory in 1MB real mode address space. All we need to know is how to switch between text mode and graphics mode. Probably there are BIOS modes like for regular PC graphics. This Nokia definitely supports one of 02h,03h or 07h modes, since they were 80x25 text modes. 0Eh mode would be a great fit since it was a 640x200 in 16-colors mode for EGA cards. However this can be either found in GEOS driver or by brute force with small DOS program that tests all modes, way beyond standard IBM modes (early SVGA cards had custom modes before VESA standardized them). Then all we need to do is to find out how pixel data is stored in the framebuffer. With all of that we can do: 1. We can make custom video drivers for Windows 3.1 (Windows 95 won't run, not enough RAM). 2. Add support in games. FastDoom port is the best use case. 486 can run DOOM and FastDOOM goal is to support all possible graphics devices. 3. Make TSR that will translate CGA/EGA video data to native Nokia format, adding compatibility with most early MS-DOS games and software.

[@JanusCycle]

I great overview of the work to be done. I would love to see this happen.

[@jimzucker]

i remember this phone very well. It's crazy how back then was crazy futuristic. It was hard to believer you can do that kind of stuff with a phone and 25 years later looks like this.

[@ilovelimpfries]

Man, this brought back old memories. I was a staunch user of communicator series starting from the 9000 al the way to the E90. I have all of them even the low spec version like the 9300. I wonder what happened to them as I have never sold any of my cell phones. Must have threw them all out accidentally.

[@JanusCycle]

Great to hear from a dedicated Communicator user. Must have been amazing to have these at the time. I'm sorry you can't find em, I do hope they show up sometime.

[@rosenfeld8]

I really miss those grey displays too. They remind me of my first phone, childhood and week long battery life

[@Aln_sheep_100]

I'm exited waiting the raspberry communicator

[@JanusCycle]

If I can find more Communicator models I will explore them.

[@BackPalSA]

Never saw your content before, but got it recommended and clicked. Subbed. I'd love to see a video on the follow-up model!

[@JanusCycle]

Cool, glad you enjoyed this.

[@madrandomize5115]

I have this phone, bought it for 5 euros 10 years ago in the flea market, it is awesome.I used the infrared Port to send images.

[@thecryingsoul]

Don't care too much about the lcd, but the processor certainly makes it a fascinating device

[@plfarinha]

Amazing LCD yes! It makes me feel very nostalgic and remember the good ol' days :)

[@adameichler]

Would you be willing to share some of that software? I might have some apps which are no longer available on-line for exchange. :)

[@JanusCycle]

Some of it came from the Archive archive.org/details/9110-software The rest from all over. I would love to try some more software. I will have to make an archive available.

[@TheBasementChannel]

Wow, I was always so covetous of these things back in the day. So much futuristic! Thanks for showing us the journey and reminding me never to try to fiddle with reflowing BGA chips.

[@JanusCycle]

*never fiddle with reflowing BGA in anything you can't afford to completely destroy :) Hey, good looking channel you have there!

[@TheBasementChannel]

@@JanusCycle why thank you sir, not a bad looking channel you have yourself!

[@Clancydaenlightened]

Back then this was called a pda not a smartphone

[@JanusCycle]

Computerworld, May 17, 1999 books.google.com.au/books/content?id=yPJJAPQ8xGMC&pg=PT93&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2tjTTPX5wE9igchUB2l1Wl5Vwz6Q&w=1280

[@TrevKen]

I worked in a mobile phone shop as my first job in the late 90's and my boss owned one of these phones. I was so envious as I had been dreaming of owning a Psion Series 3... But I was not aware that this beast was hiding a 486 CPU inside, I would have been even more lustful of this device had I known, being a fan of Doom and PC's at that time. I'm amazed that x86 existed in phones back then. How was the power consumption and battery life?

[@JanusCycle]

Battery life, from what I can tell is fine. This 486 was designed for embedded use. So by the late 90s the chip die had been shrunk considerably and it had extra functions built in, including very low speed modes and suspend abilities.

[@Woolfy_420]

Imagine if Nokia still made phone's 😮

[@r2nce]

They do...

[@Woolfy_420]

​@@r2nceYeah but to compete with today's phone.

[@Tariqslo]

I had it, it was like having a space ship controller. It was awesome. I also had the luck to experience Nokia 9300 9200 and 9500

[@AmichaiRotman]

Great nostalgia, blast from the past! I used to have this exact phone as my daily driver for my business as a PC Technician. I used to use it for reading and email and even fax dealers when ordering replacement PC parts right at the customer's office or home. I got a lot of 'WOW!" reactions from them...

[@JanusCycle]

That sounds like a lot of fun having this phone back then. Thanks for sharing this.

[@rosshilton]

I used one of these in the late 90s. It was the perfect work tool for me. I used dial up internet to pull down my email - this was long before Blackberry made this normal. I threw it away a few years ago.

[@ahmedp8009]

Yes! finally the communicator! Would love to see more videos on this series 9210i, 9300, 9500. My dream is a modern smartphone in this form factor.

[@hanakomisa]

Gemini PDA/Cosmo Communicator might scratch your itch for a modern phone in that form factor!

[@ahmedp8009]

@@hanakomisa Oh yeah, issue is, the latest model the Slide comes with Mediatek chips chipset, which is underwhelming for the asking price, right now I'm on Fold 2, closest thing to a Communicator.

[@RazmanRahim]

Fantastic device, had one in 1999, the fax facilities was good, needed better internet capabilities, was hoping for a developer to improve or create a better IRC client, over telnet it was just too busy, but it was state of the art communication. The monochrome green keeps it focused and purposed. A legend.

[@phat-kid]

i had a nokia in 2010 that was basically a smart phone. i could use myspace and everything. i got it around the same time the razr was popular, and i could never understand why people liked the razr, when my phone was virtually unknown and way better

[@stemid85]

The Nokia Communicator is famous, but one phone you'll never see mentioned anywhere is the Spectronic TS2000. My brother had this phone around 2000 and I'll never forget seeing it. It had no buttons, and no touchscreen, you navigated with special gestured on the sides of the device.

[@JanusCycle]

That phone looks awesome. I really want one now.

[@JoeHedrick]

Ohhh man, I had a 9290 back in the day and it was amazing. Being able to play Doom on my phone before it was cool to play Doom on a toaster was pretty mind blowing.

[@a68k_de]

I had this, also the addon for the 2110(i)/PT11 (or how it is called outside germany) and later some of the 9110i and 9210i... still have one, still working, bought a battery from CN some years ago but didn't do very much with it. Owning one is the goal ;-) This is so sad that Nokia didn't survive ... produced the best and innovativest phones ever

[@850Tech]

When others are watching iPhone 16 and Android 15 Features why are we watching these? not only watching but it brings some peace to my mind. Thank you. I also love greyscale LCDs maybe the reason I like a lot of Casio Digital watches instead of the smart watches these days

[@Jwn5k]

Yet another interesting tech device video from JC! I think you might just be my favorite small-ish tech content creator.

[@JanusCycle]

cool, thank you.

[@steveb1972]

Oh Lord, I SO wanted a Nokia communicator back in the day!

[@MrFatalZero]

Woahhhhh! I always wanted one of those bad boys. Years ago I worked part time in telecom, had a business customer order a Nokia 9500 Communicator…. Man, I was so happy to set the thing up for him.

[@JanusCycle]

Nice, some first hand experience.

[@Omnieus70]

I had one of these, absolutely loved it. Nokia was kind enough to send me a Software dev kit for it along with a ton of internal libraries. Managed to get some picture messaging apps built as well as a telnet client. It was my first remote support device for clients. Just telnet into the site and fix what I could without having to drive out to them.

[@JanusCycle]

It's great to hear from a developer at the time of this phone. That is so cool, thank you.

[@siemens6688]

Hi, nice video ! The Siemens 32MB MMC Card remind me my sweet memory with the first Siemens MP3 Phone, the SL-45 (Or Siemens 6688 in other country) ! The Nokia Communicator is the only kind device of those day that really work “like PC” , I use 9300, and E90 for few years, sweet memory !

[@JanusCycle]

I think this MMC actually came from a broken SL-45! I'm looking for a working SL-45i. I would really love to try this phone out one day.

[@LinasR]

That antenna thing isn't gimmick. Once I was stuck in a tunnel, had to wait till other trains pass. Every passenger were just sitting with their out of network mobiles while this communicator managed to not even send SMS but also maintain decent bidirectional GSM call. Kudos to Nokia engineers

[@JanusCycle]

That's some quality Nokia engineering for you.

[@PaulGrayUK]

Neat, have one of those kicking about in some box, front display ribbon cable went but worked beyond that.

[@bardo0007]

I worked in an electronic store back in 1998-2002 and I clearly remember the Nokia range of Communicators, they were sensational back then, lot of businesses bought them mainly to send e-mails and use the office applications. But when 9210 appeared with the color screen , the old ones looked like stone age in comparison. We sold several hundred units of the 9210, I loved the size of it, truly the first smart phone!

[@joypad67]

Das waren so geile Geräte. Ich habe beide gehabt. Das 9210 mit Farbdisplay ist 2001 auf den Markt gekommen. Ich habe es im Februar 2004 gebraucht gekauft und bis zum Januar 2006 benutzt. Es wurde durch den MDA1 (mit Windows CE) ersetzt. Den ungenutzten Nokia-Communicator-9210 habe ich dann im Okt 2010 noch für 50€ verkauft.

[@bertramspielt]

I loved my 9110i. But it was far away from reliable... I am a heavy user, so these things lasted a maximum of 4 to 6 months - after this time, the flat cable between the upper and lower part broke, which forced the item into a shutdown, so I had to reboot it dozens of time each day. One call to Nokia - and a two days later, TNT Express delivered a new one.... Most of the time, they didn't take the old one back. Nokia had a distribution office in Vienna in these good ol days - every time, when I was in Vienna I brought them a package with all the broken Communicators. This worked well, as these were under warranty. And so I had to buy one every 2 years - which was quite an awfull lot of money. And I still have one 9110i as a decoration/memory. It was and is a cool thing.

[@JanusCycle]

That sounds like some very heavy use. I hope you were also very productive!

[@benjialexander5850]

I wish we had companies that still made cool computers like this ... these days all types of computers look the same across companies ... more or less...

[@Trevurie]

Back then I thought this was peak phone design then touch screen came along.

[@crazyivan030983]

Love those types of LCDs. I just recently bought a vintage 90s CASIO electronic diary with similar LCD, but with mutch lover resolution. Backlight is almost mesmerizing... :)

[@southerndiy1]

Hell yeah. I remember browsing eBay for these in the early 2000s. My dream was to own a phone with a keyboard, web browser and email. Amazing to see how far we’ve come.

[@warhero82]

That display is beautiful! Love old Nokia devices. Appreciate the vid!

[@christopherroughton]

that crazy john sim card just unlocked a memory I didn't know I had about when I moved to Australia in 2008 - we didn't end up staying for very long which I regret as I loved it but wow, deep memory unlocked lol Cool vid btw.

[@JustB3NJI]

My aunt had one and funny story, she had got a phone on contract thinking little of her choice, not at all tech savvy she just wanted a mobile. An while staying at our house she almost went mental at me for breaking her phone in half...In actual fact I had just realised you could open it to reveal the keyboard and she had no idea it could do that.

[@joe_z]

I've seen stuff like these in my dreams before and thought I was just imagining things. Didn't realize they were real!

[@RIZFERD]

Don't know why I am still feeling in the 1990's But when I look back I've had hundreds of phones, laptops, computers and gadgets including PDA's such as Palm, Sony Xperia P1i in Symbian OS and X1 in Windows Mobile, etc then I realise that I am already in my 40's.

[@joypad67]

Nice Video, well done😊. I love this devices, back in the days. I had them both. There was an Development Environment for this devices. Visual Studio with C++ and Nokia-Libraries. I don't remember me exactly.

[@JanusCycle]

In fact I have a copy of the SDK for the 9110. But I've not looking into it.

[@RardSFX]

Do you know any resources for similar hacks on the 9000model? Ive got a very beaten up one with a dead battery but i seem yo remember powering it up with a dc adapter. I had no idea it used a 386.

[@JanusCycle]

The 9000 should run most of the same software as the 9110. However without a memory card slot I don't think you can get an MS-DOS prompt and you will need a serial cable to install anything.

[@techdistractions]

Always dreamed of the 9110 back in the day. Alas, settled for whatever was “free with my plan” instead 😂