Sony's history of media formats and devices is fascinating. I keep thinking that at some stage they're going to stop creating new ones, but somehow never seems to happen.

This goes into just 6 of the media formats, but there are so many more.

https://www.slashgear.com/1675900/discontinued-sony-formats-...

A more recent example: Archival Disc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Disc

The author should really upload these to the Internet Archive.

The emulator (which seems like it's for DOS) seems a strange thing to include on the disc:

  ><fs> file /ddman.exe 
  MS-DOS executable, MZ for MS-DOS

Those applications seem pretty weak. In a similar timeframe I seem to recall possessing a standalone dictionary/crossword solver device, and a five-language translator/dictionary. Both of which were much more compact and presumably had small, solid-state data in ROM chips. The monochrome, text-first Data Discman software looks similar to the output of those basic devices.

I suspect the problem with the Data Discman was weak multimedia capabilities, compared to the what can fit on a CD-ROM, in either its API or what the hardware could push. If the software of the Data Discman had been more like Microsoft Encarta, it might have wowed people.

I have not one but two Data Discmans, unfortunately neither works. I believe both need to be re-capped and disassembling them (correctly) is a bigger task than I'm interested in at the moment. I'm going to have to see if I can get the emulator running and try out the discs I have.

The Data Discman fascinated me ever since I first saw mention of it in a magazine. This was the early 90s so CDs were still Brobdingnagian compared to other storage media at the time. A portable device that could carry an encyclopedia? Amazing! To me at the time they were a Star Trek technology made real.

As an aside I still love Sony's consumer electronics industrial design from the 90s. It was a great intersection of functional and attractive.