Sneak peak.

[kroc@oldbytes.space]

A British classic

#worldglass #greggs #retrocomputing #palmtop #psion

[nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social]

@Kroc Every time I see one of these I truly wish I'd ever been able to have one. These days I need something more modern, but I would have killed to have had one of these back in the day...

[littlealex@infosec.exchange]

@nazokiyoubinbou @Kroc I actually used one in my last two years of university. Before I was using an Apple Newton, but this was quite a pain at an unpleasant place.
The battery was holding up for ages, the keyboard was practical and I was writing a lot of homework, papers etc. on it. Definitely a milestone in computer history!

[bonkers@nerdculture.de]

@littlealex @nazokiyoubinbou @Kroc

I just made one

https://www.reddit.com/r/writerDeck/s/Ltf6HeZQOo

[kroc@oldbytes.space]

@bonkers @littlealex @nazokiyoubinbou Have you seen #PocketMage? https://pocketmage.org/ He solves the latency issue by using a small OLED to display the ‘current line’ when typing. It’s a clever device but I wish the screen were wider

[bonkers@nerdculture.de]

@Kroc @littlealex @nazokiyoubinbou looks nice, never heard of it.

The reaction time is not bad, I'd say. I haven't tried any serious writing yet, but it shows itself pretty nicely in tests.

[moses_izumi@fe.disroot.org]

@Kroc
My grandpa had one.
It taught me how Solitare works (unlike the Windows port).

[benjamineskola@hachyderm.io]

@Kroc that’s an incredible keyboard for a mobile device.

[severtz@mastodon.online]

@Kroc The stylus is stuck in mine. But the keyboard is awesome.

Runs off 2 AA batteries, and has a serial port.

[funcan@mastodon.social]

@benjamineskola @Kroc I've got two (the one that got me through uni and an eBay spare) say waiting for me to replace their guts with something a little more modern... The quality of engineering in there is amazing though

[jarmuszz@fosstodon.org]

@Kroc
I can somehow feel the keyboard just by looking at the image

[ivor@social.ivor.org]

@nazokiyoubinbou @Kroc sniff, yeah I loved my Psion 3, until I left it in a hotel room and never found it again.

[dichotomiker@dresden.network]

@Kroc We have 3d printers, SoCs, OLEDs and orderable switches. Where are the products?

oops there they are: https://nerdculture.de/@bonkers/116483156961842289 https://oldbytes.space/@Kroc/116483216416855524

[kroc@oldbytes.space]

@dichotomiker No comparison I’m afraid. As much as I love to see new palmtop devices available (#PocketMage hasn’t even shipped yet), there’s still nothing that comes close to the Psion, both in terms of hardware or software. Nobody is seriously going to write a book on a PocketMage with a membrane keyboard. I _am_ writing a book on the #Psion however, in the here and now, not in future promises.

Trust me, I want an affordable, open, palmtop writing platform more than most but it’s still an issue of design and intent before we even get to the hardware. A complete replacement for the Psion is still several years away.

[3corns@mstdn.ca]

@Kroc how old is this machine back in Russia the calculators used to be the size of our main frames and you would line up to use one

[bookandswordblog@scholar.social]

@Kroc ooh, excuse for a political economy infodump! The short version is that under Bush II and Obama, the USA took control over international electronic payments to 'fight terrorism' (and let Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and Stripe collect rents). The EU is undermining that but right now the crowdfunding services like liberapay, subscribestar, and ghost are wrappers around a few American financial services companies. 1/2.

[bookandswordblog@scholar.social]

@Kroc Unsurprisingly, this means that the alternatives have not taken off (USD $100k/mo in donations on Liberapay, $25m/mo in publicly visible donations on Patreon so 250 times greater). Patreon also poisoned the well by pivoting from "donate to keep something free online, possibly get something cheap in exchange" to "sell your whole back catalogue or services as a subscription." This is because Patron took VC money and the money men wanted a big payout, but it makes some patrons needy.. 2/2

[kroc@oldbytes.space]

Grabbing lunch. Included a side-shot this time to give you an idea of the device’s profile: it doesn’t simply open calm-shell style but instead slides the keyboard tray outward and brings the centre-fold inwards to give it a more comfortable typing position, and stability — the centre-fold is *not* at the back of the device! Psion won a design award for this piece of engineering.

No modern device is doing this.
They did it in 1997.

#psion #retrocomputing

[recantha@mastodon.social]

@Kroc Always was a piece of GORGEOUS design, that.

[kroc@oldbytes.space]

@Infoseepage Let’s not forget the leather!