GRiDPAD 2050

I bought a GRiDPAD 2050 at a computer "flea market" at M.I.T. and months went by before I was able to use it. I am writing down what I know because it took me so long to find out. When I got the GRiDPAD, I had a disk drive, a keyboard, and the GRiDPAD itself. I had no power supply pen. First I went looking around for both of these items by trying to locate the manufacturers, only to find that GRiD was gone. Here's the story. GRiD was making a killing in the tablet computer market because no one else was. Then they tried to get into desktop systems, and failed. Then other companies started to make tablet computers too. GRiD was sold to tandy, tandy pulled its guts out and sold it to samgsung, which finished the job of dismantling it. Sort of sad, actually, since they, in my opnion, made nice computers. I hear rumors that you can still get parts with tandy, but I don't think that's true. Anyway, I had a comatose GRiD on my hands. So I began looking for a power supply. I had one in my basement that barely cut it, and the GRiD pad shutdown from low power half the time. I tried various power supplies, without success(I connected them to the GRiDPAD's battery connectors, not the AC jack, which has a weird plug). Finally I came across some apple II power supplies, and they work like a charm. I wish they put out a teeny bit more current, the GRiD needs 17.5 volts@1.5 amps and the apple power supply put out 15v@1.5 amps(I think), but it works perfectly. So if you have a comatose GRiD, go to your local dump and pick up an old apple II power supply(test it first). Now the pen, on the other hand, is a different story. The pen contains a special resonance coil, and only a GRiDPAD pen will work because of that. I couldn't dig up a pen or a replacement, so I use a keyboard and a mouse. Good luck on your GRiDPAD 2050!


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