181–190 of 289 posts
I loved my 3a - which followed my Nokia communicator, which replaced my cassiopeia, none of which I actually really used lol... The 3a held the most promise with it's built in basic language... looking back I wish I had just enjoyed it more rather than being tied up in the illusion of the dot com boom. Thanks for the nostalgia!
I 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.
I'm currently writing an agenda app inspired by the Psion 3a/5 Agendas - because they were the best calendar apps I ever used. Github: https://github.com/semiprime/pygenda Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvQqFmlZ6nM If you liked the S5 agenda, I'd appreciate any feedback you could give. (Video shows it on a Gemini, but I also run it on my Linux Laptop. Running on Windows is probably possible, but I haven'…
I 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.
The keyboard is pretty good although not as good as I would have expected given the ravings about it.
I should probably open it up and re-enforce the cable but I'm a bit afraid of messing it up in the attempt.
Lots 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.
So sort of, but let's not look at the past too wistfully. I also remember when moderately long text had to be split across files (even multiple floppies if you were writing a book). I remember having to choose what languages my OS installation was going to be able to display. Farther back I remember not having the spare cash for the expansion card necessary to have lower case letters and typing in program listings ou…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So sort of, but let's not look at the past too wistfully. I also remember when moderately long text had to be split across files (even multiple floppies if you were writing a book). I remember having to choose what languages my OS installation was going to be able to display. Farther back I remember not having the spare cash for the expansion card necessary to have lower case letters and typing in program listings ou…
In every example you listed the limiting factor is memory or storage size, not computing speed.
Getting a Psion 5 palmtop from 1997 online via PPP (and a Raspberry Pi) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33946824 - Dec 2022 (26 comments)
“16 Shades of Grey” – Building a Psion/EPOC32 Emulator (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30835970 - March 2022 (1 comment)
Psion PDA – How does it look today? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29871609 - Jan 2022 (2 comments)
Raspberry Pi Helps Vintage Psion Find Its Voice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20609493 - Aug 2019 (1 comment)
Former Psion designers return with a fresh take on the PDA - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16619449 - March 2018 (2 comments)
Gemini PDA: 20 years on, meet the all-new Psion Series 5 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15818324 - Nov 2017 (69 comments)
Motorola Buys Psion For $200m - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4126441 - June 2012 (1 comment)
Psion: the last computer (2007) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=226305 - June 2008 (1 comment)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the argument is that we mostly want to accomplish the same sorts of things, but now we have to use a flamethrower.
But we don't, even the fact that we browse the Web and watch videos would have been impossible on a Nokia 3210.
Lots 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.
This is why I use previous generation Raspberry Pis and low end SBCs like OrangePi Zeros. Doing things in a constrained environment is fun and rewarding. Being able to run a full-fledged server with 512MB or less RAM is a great exercise and very enlightening to see what's possible. When one can able to run code on these systems fast, it runs fast everywhere. Running with razor thin free space makes you prevent all me…
It is, but realistically features will increase business long before efficiency starts to hamper it.