27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#221

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 11:53 PM UTC

theodric wrote: post #215

dredmorbius wrote: post #213

I would be interested in a product or kit based on e-ink and a small keyboard. It need not necessarily run EPOC16, though a battery-optimised OS would be quite useful. I'm using a 13" e-ink tablet for most of my mobile use (reading, no social media, absolute minimal number of account-based tools), and it's quite good. A bit large for a pocketable / PDA device, and the fact that there's no keyboard which could integra…

Beepberry https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/

Thanks!

(I was pretty sure there was a RaPi option somewhere.)

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#222

Post by wkjagt » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 1:29 AM UTC

I still have my 3a sitting on a shelf in my work space. Still works fine too. I only had to fix the hinge at some point. I have the one with a full 1MB of RAM! I vaguely remember writing a program for it in OPL that would tell the time using beeps during the night when pressing a button so I didn't have to turn a light on to know what time it was. I kind of want to see if I can use it for anything now. I still have the serial cable for it too (somewhere, I think).

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#223

Post by askvictor » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 1:47 AM UTC

tobiasbischoff wrote: post #5

I 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.

The Beepberry isn't far off: https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/ looks like it's got a Blackberry keyboard. Missing LTE, but since it's just a raspberry pi zero, you could probably hack one in directly to a serial port on the GPIO. Needs a case though, but 3D printing one shouldn't be hard.

But I think the general market for this kind of device is really tiny; phones and tablets can do this pretty well, and appeal to general consumers

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#224

Post by triggercut » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 4:14 AM UTC

garethsprice wrote: post #152

triggercut wrote: post #91

This brings back happy memories. I was lucky enough to have the precursor, an Acorn Pocket Book, as part of my school curriculum. I lost it a few years ago in a move but I can still remember the the distinctive "device" smell (probably the case material). I yearned for the additional memory of the Psion 2. I would write lengthy stories that would fill up the memory. No off-device storage. I'd have to delete entries o…

The Acorn was a rebadged Psion 3 rather than a precursor. I remember as I lusted after the Psions on display in Boots as a (dorky) child, and was ecstatic when our school piloted the Acorns. (Psion and Acorn, two more examples of how the UK is capable of developing world-leading tech but not at successfully marketing it...)

Wow! I stand corrected. I was led to believe that Acorn went bust and sold to Psion. I thought it went Acorn Pocket Book 1, Acorn Pocket Book II, Psion 3.

Live and learn. Thanks! :-)

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#225

Post by triggercut » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 4:16 AM UTC

bwestergard wrote: post #102

triggercut wrote: post #91

This brings back happy memories. I was lucky enough to have the precursor, an Acorn Pocket Book, as part of my school curriculum. I lost it a few years ago in a move but I can still remember the the distinctive "device" smell (probably the case material). I yearned for the additional memory of the Psion 2. I would write lengthy stories that would fill up the memory. No off-device storage. I'd have to delete entries o…

Thank you for sharing this lovely memory. I've recently gotten into birding as an adult, and have heard that in some parts of the world basic bird identification is part of the curriculum (e.g. the Netherlands). If you don't mind me asking, what country/region did you go to school in? Was this the initiative of one teacher, or something more standardized?

The UK. Not standardized, just a lucky combination of a fancy school trying to justify fees and good teachers who made the most of the situation for their students.

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#226

Post by marci » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 7:08 AM UTC

pydry wrote: post #77

oliwarner wrote: post #49

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.

Ive looked for a 5mx form factor in the form of a phone and not been able to find it.

It has some issues, and no Android, pure GNU/Linux, but there's the pinephone and it's keyboard addon.

https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pinephone-pro-keyboard-...

But I think it's more a phone to thinker with, not a Just Works phone.

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#227

Post by k_ » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

syockit wrote: post #106

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still waiting for delivery on the Astro Slide after ordering it over a year ago. As it was on IndieGogo, I can't even get my money back. Probably best to avoid Planet Computers - they lie about availability and delivery dates.

My contribution for Astro Slide is dated Oct. 2020. They've locked my contribution, so I consider it money burnt. While I was still naively waiting for it to come, I held on to my Gemini PDA for so long, even after its battery had bulged to the point that the back panel covering it had dislodged. After all the troubles it had caused me, I decided to give it up and get a normal smartphone instead. Life has been much b…

Same date here, but I don't even think they locked mine. I did give up too, but not on physical keyboard phones. I bought a unihertz titan pocket and I love it.

Keyboard is great despite the top row that is really weird coming from blackberry (but I guess it's because of B patents..). Form factor is weird but I actually like having a small phone, and it's ok for most of my use cases.

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#228

Post by bayindirh » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 7:22 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #210

thorncorona wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing great things with today's hardware is still possible, but laziness, "We needed this yesterday, I don't care about its efficiency, hardware is cheap anyway" mindset is killing things fast. It is, but realistically features will increase business long before efficiency starts to hamper it.

"let's MAKE MONEY now, fuck the energy we waste and the planet we kill, goddammit"

No, no. It’s not money. It’s value. Value for our customers, our employees, and most importantly, our shareholders.

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#229

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 8:08 AM UTC

stavros wrote: post #132

ekianjo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, because no device can run at super low wattage with such an hypothetical OS.

It's not a hypothetical OS, it's what the Psion runs, and why not?

I did not know that the Psion OS is available for modern SOCs.

Re: 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)

#230

Post by oliwarner » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 9:52 AM UTC

anyfoo wrote: post #219

oliwarner wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These limits of old hardware are exactly what makes the software so amazing. Look what was achieved despite those limits. We've basically had the same desktop and productivity software for 30 years. Look at games like Doom or Tyrian, or what was happening on consoles and think about how crappy that hardware was. Modern software is embarrassingly slow by comparison. I've been around long enough to know that's always b…

> Look what was achieved despite those limits. We've basically had the same desktop and productivity software for 30 years. Look at games like Doom or Tyrian, or what was happening on consoles and think about how crappy that hardware was. I agree with the rest, but games are a comparatively bad example, almost a counterexample. A lot of them are basically the exception of what you're saying. Because the visual fideli…

Compared to productivity software, sure, but cycle-for-cycle, the 90s gaming was driven by developers like John Carmack and spiritual forebears who didn't just have to invent their gameplay metaphors, they had to find ways to trick hardware into doing things faster (a lot of mathematical shortcuts, but also working in the terms the hardware worked).

Again, I agree that gaming has come further, but I actually think the comparison works well because gaming is reaching that Windows 2k/XP plateau. We're waist-deep into diminishing returns now. Cyberpunk is the Windows Vista of gamedev. Gosh it's pretty at times but at an almighty cost, we're shovelling gold into our PCs to make generic compute modules work out how light interacts with virtual surfaces. Doesn't sound like gaming to me.

The software continues to get flabbier, demands more and more, and we have to keep up of we can't load Office in under 10 seconds, or play games at the native resolutions. It just feels wasteful.