For Sale: Amazing near mint "time warp condition" vintage mini laptop / subnotebook computer made in Japan for Gateway 2000 around 1993. I did not clean this AT ALL- was this clean when found.
Original factory specs for this model were 640KB RAM and a 20MB hard drive- this one has around 1MB RAM and a 40MB hard drive so it's either been upgraded or was a special factory model. The screen is a CGA compatible blue-white display and it's working and readable- see video. Backlights are good. The contrast and brightness sliders on the front work. Sometimes the screen can look a bit faded, sometimes (like when you run the included Word Perfect 5.1 program) you need to re-adjust the contrast, then when you go back to DOS need to re-adjust it back again.
All the keys on the keyboard are tested and working- the keyboard action has a nice tactile feel to it unlike on some similar mini notebook computers. The fan is not loud. Serial and parallel ports are untested but have no reason to think they will have issues. BIOS can be accessed at any time by pressing the Fn and Escape (Setup) key and the BIOS menus can be scrolled through and changes made. The battery is currently (4/16/25) holding a charge (!!!). Not sure for how long but as you can see in the eBay video when the power cord is disconnected it stays on.
Power supply is also in mint or near mint shape and is the original Model HBCUBE. Battery pack is original HBBATT. The battery can be charged in or out of the laptop, battery must be in place to power up the laptop. The orange light on the battery/laptop works when plugged in. On the laptop the AC power light works but haven't seen the green or red battery LEDs come on during testing. The hard drive access LED works as expected. The Caps and Num green LED indicators ae working, probably the Pad and SCRL LEDs to but did not check. The front latch works well and the cover hinges are in good shape. The covers for the serial and parallel ports are also in good shape.
Boots to DOS 5 pretty quickly and the OS seems to be working fine. Running the CLOCK program which is in UTIL folder will display a numeric display in the upper right hand corner of the screen, running it a second time will close the program. Word Perfect 5.1 is installed and seems to be working 100%.
This is super clean and super rare sublaptop computer. If you collect vintage computers and you don't have one in your collection this might be your only chance... Gateway followed up on this model with a 486 version which is much easier to find.
Here are some details and specs from the Wikipedia page:
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The HandBook was a very small and lightweight subnotebook originally introduced by Gateway 2000 in 1992. It quickly achieved critical acclaim and a cult-like following, especially in Japan.
It was designed by IQV and Tottori Sanyo and manufactured by Tottori Sanyo in Japan. The lead engineer on the product was Howard Fullmer and other significant contributors included Bob Burnett and Rick Murayama.
The product was only 9.7 in (250 mm) wide, 5.9 in (150 mm) deep, and 1.6 in (41 mm) high, and weighed less than 3 lb (1.4 kg). While it used a Chips and Technologies 8680 microprocessor, it was marketed as having 286-level performance. The C&T chip set included hardware emulation of the Intel 80186 processor and the HandBook used a special feature of the chip set called SuperSet whereby 80286 instructions were trapped and then emulated in software. This same feature was used to emulate the 8051 keyboard controller, serial port and numerous other I/O functions. Intel worked closely with IQV to include similar capabilities in the SL chip sets which were introduced in the mid-90s.
The HandBook had 640 KB of RAM, a 20 MB hard drive, and a monochrome blue-white CGA-compatible display. The unit could be powered by a rechargeable NiMH battery or six AA batteries in a special battery pack. The rechargeable batteries were unusual in that they are able to be charged without actually being in the laptop. A floppy disk was attached through a proprietary parallel port connector. A tremendous engineering effort went into the design of the HandBook's keyboard. It featured 17.8 mm center-to center key spacing and 2 mm travel for a firm feel.
After the success of the original Gateway HandBook, Gateway came out with a 486 model. The HandBook 486 (as it was called) was originally available as two models: A 486SX/25 and a 486DX/40 model. Gateway later on came out with HandBook 486 models utilizing a 486SX/33 or 486DX/50 processor. All of these handbooks used a grayscale 640x480 VGA display. Because of the small size of the unit, the display was distorted — what appear as circles on other displays come out as ovals on the HandBook 486.
Additional higher resolutions photos may be available.
Send zip code and city for a ship quote - should be between $8.99 and $14.99 if you are in the continental United States (June 2025)
