Cybiko Classic

The Cybiko is a Russian handheld computer introduced in the U.S. by David Yang's company Cybiko Inc. as a retail test market in New York on April 2000, and rolled out nationwide in May 2000. It is designed for teens, featuring its own two-way radio text messaging system. It had over 430 "official" freeware games and applications. Because of the text messaging system, it features a rubber QWERTY keyboard. An MP3 player add-on with a SmartMedia card slot was made for the unit as well. The company stopped manufacturing the units after two product versions and only a few years on the market. Cybikos can communicate with each other up to a maximum range of 300 metres (0.19 miles). Several Cybikos can chat with each other in a wireless chatroom. By the end of 2000, the Cybiko Classic sold over 500,000 units. There were two models of the Classic Cybiko. Visually, the only difference was that the original version had a power switch on the side, whilst the updated version used the "escape" key for power management. Internally, the differences between the two models were in the internal memory, and the location of the firmware. The CPU was a Hitachi H8S/2241 clocked at 11.0592 MHz and the Cybiko Classic also had an Atmel AT90S2313 co-processor, clocked at 4 MHz to provide some support for RF communications. It came with 512KB flash memory-based ROM flash memory and 256KB RAM. It came with an add-on slot in the back. The add-on slot had the same pin arrangement as a PC card, but it is not electrically compatible. The Cybiko Classic came in five colors: blue, purple, neon green, white, and black. The black version had a yellow keypad, instead of the white unit found on other Cybikos.