This reminds me of when I was in primary school in 1996 or so, and the "thing" to have as a kid was a personal organiser; irrespective of the fact none of us had anything to organize.
27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
41–50 of 289 posts
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#42Psion 3c was what got me into programming! My grandfather gave me his old one when I was a kid. To an 11-year-old, a spreadsheet, world clock, and address book gets old pretty fast :) But the in-built OPL [1] language provided unlimited possibilities. You can see the icon for it in one of the screenshots. I remember printing off a copy of the 300-page language manual I found online (breaking dad’s printer in the proc…
I started with OPL on a Pison Series 3 (“no bloody A, B, C, or D!”) with 128 kbytes of storage — unlimited potential but limited resources… my first project was to code up something that looked like John Connor’s ATM-cracking program from Terminator 2.
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#43I have gone through several Psion 5's over the last few years. They all broke eventually - mainly the screen (ribbon cable).
Because I couldn't justify spending yet another £60 for a Psion 5 which soon breaks down, I run Epoc Agenda now on my Windows PC on an EPOC emulator, and it's great for keeping track of events.
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#44I still dream of an rLCD + Apollo 3+ chip + BLE (it has that) + WIFI + optional 4/5g + Psion like casing. I would write a graphical OS for it for fun. I really want to see week+ long battery life.
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#45I will never understand why we do not have this kind of device anymore. A small computer, running linux, proper keyboard, integrated LTE - it would be a messaging and writing dream. Back in the days i developed custom software for the Revo, the SDK was a dream to work with as well.
You can still have it. You can order one at https://store.planetcom.co.uk Comes preinstalled with android, but you can load linux on them instead if you so wish.
Last I tried on mine (admittedly several years ago) the linux side was severely underbaked.
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#46I will never understand why we do not have this kind of device anymore. A small computer, running linux, proper keyboard, integrated LTE - it would be a messaging and writing dream. Back in the days i developed custom software for the Revo, the SDK was a dream to work with as well.
There are several devices like that. But I guess most people use their phones + bt keyboard.
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#47I will never understand why we do not have this kind of device anymore. A small computer, running linux, proper keyboard, integrated LTE - it would be a messaging and writing dream. Back in the days i developed custom software for the Revo, the SDK was a dream to work with as well.
You can still have it. You can order one at https://store.planetcom.co.uk Comes preinstalled with android, but you can load linux on them instead if you so wish.
Waiting for Linux to be available on the new one, using Android with a keyboard isn't a good experience it's one of the least polished / finished aspects of Android.
It's a nice object though - if I could run Ubuntu touch it would be good.
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#48I will never understand why we do not have this kind of device anymore. A small computer, running linux, proper keyboard, integrated LTE - it would be a messaging and writing dream. Back in the days i developed custom software for the Revo, the SDK was a dream to work with as well.
There are very similar things available. https://store.planetcom.co.uk/collections/popular-items/prod... is basically mimicking the Psion 5 in its physical design, and there are a number of other very small laptops around like https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09FQ7QNFB/ or GPD's various models if you want higher specs and have the cash to flash, and so on.
But for longer messaging on the move (and occasionally other things like SSH for emergency admin) I find a small external keyboard (bluetooth or USB) and stand for my phone does the trick. You can also get keyboards with built-in stands (or cases with built-in keyboards) so you could use them while standing, though that isn't what I currently have. This has the advantage of not needing a second full device (my main phone is always with me) and not always having the extra size/weight of the keyboard in your pocket (as you would if you use a device with a full keyboard as your primary comms unit). Whether such an arrangement would be similarly optimal for you depends on how often you would actually need it: while having the keyboard for long messages and other writing is really nice when I do use it, it is fairly rare that I can't just wait until I've got a laptop or PC in front of me.
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#49Lots of focus on the hardware here but its form factor still exists in niches.
What has vanished, is our ability to do general-purpose computing at ~8MHz. Consider the computers you had in the 90s. Windows 3.11 and Office ran on a 286 but I sit here with 12 cores at ~4Ghz just to post this crumby comment.
We are spoilt. It really makes me yearn to do more with less.
Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
#50Lots of focus on the hardware here but its form factor still exists in niches. What has vanished, is our ability to do general-purpose computing at ~8MHz. Consider the computers you had in the 90s. Windows 3.11 and Office ran on a 286 but I sit here with 12 cores at ~4Ghz just to post this crumby comment. We are spoilt. It really makes me yearn to do more with less.
I think that looking at it from a MHz standpoint is a red herring. How many things can you do per watt now, than you could per watt then?