[HN Gopher] 27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (...
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27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful (2020)
Author : bishopsmother
Score : 325 points
Date : 2023-06-02 07:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (mcgst.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mcgst.com)
| jwmoz wrote:
| When I was younger I was desperate for one of these-it looked
| like some sort of hacking machine. No idea what I would have used
| it for.
| pea wrote:
| 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.
| wkjagt wrote:
| 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).
| atdrummond wrote:
| I loved my Psions.
|
| I truly miss having a smaller form factor computer. If I could
| possibly an iPhone with an attached physical keyboard, I'm
| certain that I could do a huge amount of work that I presently do
| with my laptop. (I know I can get an external keyboard but
| there's something far more useful and satisfying about a properly
| integrated device.)
| bayindirh wrote:
| The Era of the PDA was completely different and IMHO superior
| era to today's hyperconnected smartphones.
|
| Yes, today's iPhones and Android devices do much much more, but
| the devices of older days were much more polished, to the point
| and streamlined.
|
| iPhone is a great evolution of Palm hardware and design
| philosophy, but the gamification kills most applications, and
| oh, the notifications too. Glad that most of the useless
| notifications are turned off, so I can get some battery life
| and my attention back.
| atdrummond wrote:
| I completely agree. I've done quite a bit to get my phone
| experience to a useful level but it's required a level of
| customization and careful use to create an experience that
| simply existed properly, out of the box, with the purposeful
| PDA operating systems of the 90s.
| regularfry wrote:
| There do exist things like the Gemini and the Astro Slide,
| which I've always looked at as a potential replacement, but
| they always seem to just miss the mark. The closest I've come
| to the same sort of experience was the Nokia N900, which was
| remarkable in a lot of ways.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| 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.
| syockit wrote:
| 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 better since then.
| theodric wrote:
| I see the Astro Slide 5G is 'NEW - JUST LAUNCHED! PRE-
| ORDER NOW TO SECURE YOUR PLACE IN THE ORDER LIST!'
| 'PS982.80 inc VAT' 'STOCK EXP. JULY 2023'
|
| IANAL, but one might be interested in talking to the
| class of people who didn't get their purchased product
| from a company that is apparently mere weeks away from
| shipping the next revision of it.
| k_ wrote:
| 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.
| oever wrote:
| The Nokia N950, which only made to a development edition, was
| much better. Unfortunately, mine met with a watery end.
| theodric wrote:
| I have a Gemini. The keyboard - you know, the main selling
| point - as often as not just goes 'thud' when you try to
| press a key rather than depressing and registering. The
| software was abandoned in a half-assed state after one
| revision. They strung me along for a good 6 months on
| shipping the USB-C hub and case post-Gemini delivery until I
| finally told them I was willing to give up on one of the two
| if they'd just send the other, at which point they magically
| and suddenly had both and shipped both. The USB-C dock-hub
| arrived non-functional and with something rattling around
| inside. It was some cheap AliExpress-grade crap anyway, so I
| dumped it, but those were early days for USB-C docks so I
| didn't know at the time. I declined to invest in a camera. I
| used it to edit a CV once on a plane to London. I did get the
| job. I guess that was worth the price of admission. It's no
| Psion, though!
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I always thought the Psion 3's keyboard was much better to type
| on than the Psion 5. Even though the 5's looked cooler, the keys
| had less feel and were heavier to press, and often would get
| stuck when pushing them not in the center.
|
| I could type much faster on the 3's keyboard. The software was
| just way better on the 5 and the touchscreen was very useful.
|
| The 3 had a much much better screen contrast though. I missed the
| backlight on my 3c but I think the 3mx did have this.
|
| I still have a 5MX, modded it somehere around 2009 with
| bluetooth.
| cjdell wrote:
| My dad had one of these and he continued to use it until the day
| he died in 2013. I remember thinking how crazy high resolution
| the screen was at the time. Amazing device.
|
| I got his old Series 3 (predecessor to the 3a) when I was still a
| kid and was one of the first devices I learned to code on thanks
| to the built-in OPL programming language!
| jxf wrote:
| I've never had a Psion, but as I've become a dad, I've wished for
| devices for digital literacy that weren't tablets or phones.
| Something dumb with a dictionary, encyclopedia, calendar, an
| editor, and a few games, and physical keyboard is a great, safe
| introduction to the digital world.
| guestbest wrote:
| I would like this for my daughter as well. She's way to
| interested in my iPhone and handing her a keyboard disconnected
| from a computer is only interesting for a few minutes
| monkeydust wrote:
| 100% this as father of 6 and 4 year old. I still remember
| fairly vividly when my dad, an engineer, can from work one day
| and showed me the 3a, blew his and my mind especially. Not many
| tech devices have done that since.
| rchaud wrote:
| Try an Android e-ink tablet like a Boox Note. They have wifi,
| but it's mostly for file sync and stuff because web browsing on
| e-ink is bad enough to not be worthwhile.
| gawrex wrote:
| You should check out uConsole [1] from ClockworkPI. It still
| has WiFi, but you can probably disable it.
|
| [1] https://www.clockworkpi.com/product-page/uconsole-kit-rpi-
| cm...
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| It's a Linux system. You can definitely disable anything you
| want.
|
| (The current question is whether the uConsole ever ship)
| teruakohatu wrote:
| This device seems too good to be true. Have they shipped any?
| gawrex wrote:
| There is a whole forum thread about that [1] with updates
| from the devs, but I don't think anybody received theirs
| yet.
|
| [1]: https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/update-uconsole-
| shipping-rel...
| Jun8 wrote:
| So, motivated by this article, I checked eBay, expecting to burn
| $20-30 to get one and found that these sell for around $100
| (thank god, didn't buy another device to add to my pile).
|
| My question is: who buys these at that price and for what
| purpose? Collecting old devices? Using them? I don't think buying
| these have the allure of retro computing, eg buying a Sinclair
| Spectrum.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I bet some people still use them. I used my Psion 5mx as my
| primary organizer until only a few years ago, and I still kind
| of miss it. It still works, but lacking any kind of
| connectivity except for infrared, it's increasingly difficult
| to justify in today's world.
| akaitea wrote:
| I have a few PDAs of this type, bought ultra cheap at flea
| markets and such, Casio Cassiopeia 4MB A-11, Psion Series 5,
| Ericsson MC12... bought for under $5 each so those eBay prices
| are nuts... they all work and they all serve absolutely no
| purpose, but when you're a ~hoarder~ collector you can't help
| yourself.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| 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 integrate into
| a folding-but-usable case as I'd had for an earlier Android
| tablet[1] is disappointing. Apple likewise.[2]
|
| I'm not looking for a phone (though with a headphone jack, the
| device might serve for vox comms), but a device on which I can
| read _and create_ text and some images.
|
| E-ink is battery-friendly, highly readable, works well for
| greyscale graphics (I often, though not always, forget that I'm
| looking at content which presumes colour), is _highly_ readable
| under direct sunlight, and can be read in low-light conditions
| with a modest frontlight.
|
| Purism and Pine may deliver here, though I'm not holding my
| breath.
|
| Keyboard is essential to writing. Touch input sucks.
|
| ________________________________
|
| Notes:
|
| 1. The keyboard itself was ultimately a disappointment, as was
| the tablet. The form-factor and ease of flipping from touch-based
| to keyboard-based use was quite appealing. More:
| <https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq>
|
| 2. The two problems are iOS's lack of a Linux-like userland, and
| yes, I'm aware of ish, and the fact that _despite some otherwise
| delicious keyboards_ , keys critical to Linux/Unix tools and
| conventions are missing, most notably <esc>. Android/Termux
| remains superior, despite my many reservations against Android.
| theodric wrote:
| Beepberry https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| (I was pretty sure there was a RaPi option somewhere.)
| hestefisk wrote:
| Does it run NetBSD?
| hestefisk wrote:
| Downvote? Seriously? It was a serious question. NetBSD runs
| everywhere, even 40 years old vaxen, so why wouldn't it run on
| Psion?
| fulafel wrote:
| There doesn't seem to be a port for 16-bit CPUs. But maybe
| Linux in the form of ELKS if the memory allows.
| classified wrote:
| And on top of that, it's not contaminated with the usual dark
| patterns for monetizing, lock-in, control and surveillance that
| afflict today's devices.
| lelag wrote:
| I used to be a heavy user of my Psion Revo back in the 2000s. It
| had a highly usable full-featured office suite, and I truly used
| it as a laptop replacement at the time. I was able to touch-type
| my university course on it, and it could even fit a shirt front
| pocket. Honestly, the only thing that quickly made it obsolete
| was the lack of network connectivity (limited to infrared). It's
| still one of the computing devices for which I have the fondest
| memories.
| regularfry wrote:
| If I'd had better connectivity for my 5mx at the time, I don't
| think I'd ever have put it down. Phenomenal piece of kit. I
| don't even remember it being that expensive.
| siddiqi123 wrote:
| [dead]
| tobiasbischoff wrote:
| 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.
| wishfish wrote:
| It's not Linux, but you can roughly get this form factor with
| mainstream devices without having to take a risk on small
| companies or crowdfunded projects. There are hinged laptop-
| style cases for the iPad Mini. iPadOS is generally good with
| keyboard shortcuts so that would be a decent combo as long as
| you can put up with the limitations of the OS.
|
| Zagg sells a hinged keyboard that works with 7 inch tablets. I
| bought one alongside an Amazon Fire 7 inch during a black
| friday sale. Thought it would be fun to have a mini laptop for
| around $50. The two worked well in conjunction. Was even almost
| pocketable. But the Fire was slow. If someone spent all their
| time in Termux, the Fire might have been fast enough.
|
| It's a pity the 7 inch Windows tablets didn't sell well and
| have largely vanished from the market. One could install Linux
| on them, and use them with something like the Zagg keyboard.
|
| I guess there's one more possible option. Boox's eink tablets
| have support for BT keyboards. Pair the 8 inch model with one
| of the hinged keyboards. As long as the screen can keep up with
| the typing (I have no idea) that might work well.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I have used a boox tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard (actually
| an iPad keyboard with hinges) there is nontrivial latency
| while typing, but I found it was quite manageable. It just
| forces you to keep more of the command or line of text in
| your head. I found myself writing on it a lot. Even did a
| little programming.
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| Interesting, when or which device did you try this on?
|
| On my Boox Nova 3, typing via the BT Keyboard is pretty
| much instant, no noticable delay. Though in Word or Outlook
| it helps to choose the faster screen mode. No issues in
| Termux though.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| Boox note 2
| giobox wrote:
| > There are hinged laptop-style cases for the iPad Mini
|
| This still makes for a very different form factor to the
| original Psion devices, which are much more letterbox shaped
| than most small tablets, more akin to phones. Doing this you
| end up with something more like a modern "netbook".
|
| You could slip a Psion 3a comfortably into the inside pocket
| of many suits, not a trick you can do with many 7 inch tablet
| toting a keyboard case as well.
|
| Arguably a typical touchscreen phone with a hypothetical
| hinged clamshell keyboard case would be a lot closer, but of
| course not everything works in landscape on an iPhone.
|
| The short-lived Motorola Droid is some of the closest
| anything in the smartphone era got to the spirit of the
| original devices for me:
|
| > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Droid
|
| > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I have the tech-fetish desire for such a thing, but at the same
| time I realize that my iPad plus its keyboard case is a far
| more _usable_ thing. It 's bigger, but the size pays for itself
| with the screen.
|
| I guess if you're not interested in a thing unless it runs
| Linux, that's not a useful option for you, but for me and my
| purposes it's excellent.
| criddell wrote:
| Is Linux the right choice? It feels so heavy.
|
| Could you make a Linux handheld that can run for 30 days on two
| AA batteries? Considering Psion made theirs 27 years ago, it
| seems like today we should be able to get a year or more out of
| two AA batteries.
| Tepix wrote:
| Nowadays you need a modern web browser which is a resource hog.
| wrp wrote:
| The market is too small. I had a HP Jornada 720, and it
| dramatically changed how I worked. I followed the several later
| projects that tried to continue with small size, touch-typeable
| keyboard, and desktop compatible OS, but they all fizzled from
| lack of market interest.
| wrp wrote:
| Just adding...I haven't thought about these devices for a
| long time, but now looking at the things that are available,
| I realize I wouldn't even want one now. Notebook computers
| have become so light that it's not a hassle to carry one in
| my bag, and suspend mode works well enough for "instant on".
| There isn't the great advantage there used to be.
| bayindirh wrote:
| A high quality screen is much cheaper to design and build than
| a high quality keyboard, that's why.
|
| Also half of the people buying these devices are buying for the
| show. This is why MacBooks are still called $2000 Facebook
| Machine sometimes.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| You're wrong about Macbooks. They're $2000 Reddit machines
| now.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Thanks! Oh, looks like I'm old now. :c
| coldtea wrote:
| Reddit is for old geezers, so I doubt any of the above
| answers is in any way in touch with 2023.
|
| And I'm not sure who calls Macbooks "$2000 Facebook
| machines". That sounds like the ancient DOS era bs that
| "Macs are toys" (funny, the PC ended getting all the
| gamers and meat-and-potatoes OS needs, i.e. email+web,
| older people).
|
| In the west, where they can afford it, a huge chunk of
| programmers, graphic designers, data analysts, video
| editors, musicians, writers, etc use Macbooks,
| disproportionally more so than the general public's share
| of macOS, or the share of those professions on Linux).
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Reddit is for old geezers_
|
| Please let all the Gen-Z-ers know they should vacate
| Reddit.
| dgan wrote:
| > or the share of those professions on Linux
|
| Lol This argument keeps getting reused over and over. The
| main reason Linux is _not_ used is lazy sysadmins who
| only care to support Windows and MacOS for other
| employees. This argument has as much convincing power as
| "elections" held in separatists regions of Ukraine.
|
| I do have macbook offered by my job, yes it's definitely
| better than windows, and yes i would take a linux laptop
| any day
| coldtea wrote:
| Not really. MacOS is also heavily used in companies where
| you can have your pick of OS.
|
| > _This argument has as much convincing power as
| "elections" held in separatists regions of Ukraine._
|
| So, a lot, given the demographics.
| dgan wrote:
| > So, a lot, given the demographics
|
| This is so dumb I am not even going to explain why, enjoy
| swimming v more govna, i podlechis' ot idiotizma kogda
| budet vozmozhnost'
| jorvi wrote:
| Change "the West" into "mostly America".
|
| There is still a decent chunk of Apple users in Europe,
| but it is a far cry from the extreme obsession America
| seems to have with Apple devices.
| xp84 wrote:
| This just gave me a thought.
|
| Perhaps if the EU eventually does something to
| sufficiently cripple Apple there, maybe Europe can be a
| hospitable location for a competitor besides Google to
| get a toehold someday either in smartphones or whatever
| the successor is. The duopoly sucks.
| coldtea wrote:
| Well, US has a market share for macOS of around 20% and
| Europe of around 7-8% from what I can find.
|
| I'd also wager the main culprit is the 20-30% price hike
| of Macs in Europe (in absolute numbers - it's even worse
| considering the lower wages in most of European countries
| compared to the US), rather than any particular dislike.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Actually, I'm not a youngfolk, and I'm not bothered by
| it. It was just a joke.
|
| Well, as a macOS + Linux user (for almost 2 decades),
| there were tons of "$2000 Facebook Machine" memes around.
| I remember rich kids getting them alongside shiny iPhones
| to put them on their tables at Starbucks to "show" them.
|
| I, for one, code and post-process photos on both macOS
| and Linux, and generally happy about how they
| interoperate.
|
| Also, I aim to continue to keep this Linux desktop +
| macOS notebook arrangement indefinitely, because it makes
| my life much easier and enjoyable.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| I think you are not wrong. Blackberries used to be enormously
| popular. Same with various Nokia business phones that had full
| keyboards. Or their meego phones, which had full keyboards as
| well.
|
| The formfactor did not really fail in the market but it just
| completely disappeared along with their software platforms. The
| thing that actually failed in the market was those software
| platforms. Keyboards were just collateral damage.
|
| Android and hardware keyboards never really were a thing. I
| think there were a few niche models but none from mainstream
| manufacturers like Samsung. At least I don't recall anything
| that was seriously marketed in this space in recent history.
|
| Apple actually sells keyboard covers with their ipads and they
| are super popular because real keyboards are essential for
| knowledge workers. But nothing similar is available for the
| iphone. There's nothing preventing that from happening except
| Apple deciding for their users that tiny touch screen keyboards
| are good enough when on the ipad, which has a much bigger touch
| keyboard it clearly isn't. I can see a contradiction here. That
| can't both be true.
|
| A few reasons I can see that might explain why manufacturers
| don't like the idea:
|
| 1) it adds cost and introduces more failure modes (mechanical
| issues, keys failing, etc.). Apple knows a thing or two about
| failing keyboards.
|
| 2) it makes the devices thicker. Swappable batteries
| disappeared for the same reason. Once Apple got away with
| gluing in the battery to make the phone thinner, everybody else
| copied that and never looked back.
|
| 3) Android support for this would complicate UI and the touch
| keyboard appearing. That probably is a minor one and fixable
| but I given that there are few android phones with keyboards,
| probably not a lot of testing is happening for this. IOS seems
| to actually handle this nicely on the ipad.
|
| Having used a few very robust Nokia models with keyboards, I
| think especially business users would appreciate a modern take
| on that formfactor. I don't think anyone gave this a serious
| try recently. Instead everybody seems to obsess about curved
| screens, folding screens, adding lots of camera lenses that
| mostly go unused, etc. So, manufacturers attempt to
| differentiate with features that don't really matter; which
| seems like it's a race to the bottom. But those same struggling
| vendors seem to avoid doing things that might actually
| differentiate them more meaningfully. Things like keyboards,
| swappable batteries, etc.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| >Android and hardware keyboards never really were a thing.
|
| The very first android phone (HTC dream) had a great
| keyboard.
| llampx wrote:
| The first popular (heavily marketed) Android phone in the
| US (Moto Droid) as well.
| [deleted]
| rchaud wrote:
| HTC Touch Pro 2, G1, G2 and Desire Z - the last great
| landscape keyboard phones.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Android apps are just not setup with a keyboard in mind.
| Chuck an adapter and a usb keyboard onto your phone or
| android TV, and you will quickly experience how painful it
| gets.
|
| Little things like weird tab order, or widgets not giving
| feedback when they are focused add up to a bad experience.
| regularfry wrote:
| Don't forget that with the Blackberry there was a massive
| image factor: if you had one, that implied you were important
| enough to need messaging on the go. The form factor was
| almost incidental. As full text messaging became ubiquitous
| it lost its cachet.
| rchaud wrote:
| Blackberries were expensive because you needed to pay extra
| for the BES Exchange Server Sync package, which corporate
| phones usually needed. The status symbol aspect of it faded
| because as it turns out, people do not enjoy being at the
| beck and call of their employers.
| rchaud wrote:
| Companies don't want to sell computers anymore, they want to
| sell dumb clients that direct consumers to doing everything
| inside of the safety of their walled gardens.
| steve76 wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| CrampusDestrus wrote:
| Because it would be utterly useless for the 99.999% of the
| population.
|
| And also because, like any dreams of that kind, it's better if
| it remains as such, you really do not want to see it shattered
| if anyone actually made such a device
| vmfunction wrote:
| Would beg to differ. Many people would love to a e-ink
| display (no color needed). It is better on the eye, and saves
| battery, and you can read it in the sunlight. It is not good
| for watching video, but I'm sure I'm not the only who don't
| like watching moving pictures on small screens. Most ppl just
| want to read and send text.
| CrampusDestrus wrote:
| >Most ppl just want to read and send text.
|
| no they don't, unless you are living in some alternate
| reality I'm not aware of
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| But it's just not how most people work. If you want to do
| something useful a MacBook Air, Windows eqv, or even just a
| Chromebook is hugely more productive. The keyboard is full
| sized, the screen is bigger, it's fast enough for Office
| (etc) and browsing, it has more memory, and it's not all
| that much heavier.
|
| If you just want to read and send text, any phone will do.
| And it won't have the annoying slow update on e-ink
| display. (Have you tried typing on one?)
|
| The Psions were nice toys, but not a lot more than that. I
| had a 5 and the build quality wasn't great. The pointer
| clip inside the body broke fairly quickly, and the covering
| on the device itself started peeling off.
|
| The folding action was very clever and the software was
| decent enough. But I'm not sure I ever used it for anything
| except occasional notes and some basic spreadsheeting.
|
| Its appeal was that it looked like a serious business-y
| microlaptop.
|
| That was impressive when real laptops were still blocky,
| thick, and very heavy. Now that they're not, it doesn't
| really have a use case.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| I have done programming work, for 'real things' (...) on
| a gpd pocket 1 for years fulltime. Works fine; that 'more
| productive' is just something you have, maybe for what
| you do. For me the pocket was (it broke) productive as I
| could just take it anywhere and it had 15 hours of
| battery life. My Macbook air I have to take out of my bag
| instead of my pocket, i have to bring my charger (battery
| life is good, but nowhere near 15 hours), I need a large
| enough table (in the airplane it's already quite annoying
| if you don't fly business), etc etc. I type as fast on
| that thing as on my macbook and i hardly use a
| trackpad/mouse anyway.
|
| I would basically murder for an Apollo 3+ powered device
| with rLCD running on AAA batteries (the apollo is _very_
| battery friendly) with a keyboard. So like a modern
| Psion.
|
| Now I use the Nreal with my phone + a MS foldable
| keyboard as laptop; still beats carrying a backpack with
| a laptop + charger (phone goes for 15+ hours) and it's a
| productivity win focus wise. Still would want something
| as described above as a companion OR powering the
| glasses.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| I still have a Sharp Zaurus SL-5000D here. it's an awesome
| little machine, with a full keyboard.
|
| Keyboard open: https://tldp.org/LDP/Mobile-Guide/html/mobile-
| guide-p3c2s8-z...
|
| Wikipedia (keyboard closed):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus
| Lio wrote:
| I loved mine back in the day. Also later had a Zaurus SL-C860
| I had to order from Japan. I think that was the first
| computer I used as an eBook reader. Having a little Linux
| palmtop was magic back in the day.
|
| I always lusted after several of the Psion models though,
| from the Psion 2 onwards. They were just such nicely designed
| things, even if you just looked at them as bits of industrial
| art.
| meindnoch wrote:
| It wouldn't be able to cope with Electron. Or the "modern" Web
| in general.
| baliex wrote:
| I don't think it's too cynical to say that business models
| (i.e. targetted advertising) of the Psions of today just don't
| fit with this kind of device. I never owned one but I remember
| ogling them and their high prices (to a 10 year old) in the
| Argos catalogue. Looking back on them now, the joy seems to be
| in how they strike what seems to be the perfect balance of
| dis/connectedness.
| askvictor wrote:
| 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
| Lutzb wrote:
| The GDP Pocket 3 https://www.gpd.hk/gpdpocket3 comes very close
| to your requirements.
| Tepix wrote:
| I like it. On the other hand, for this amount of money
| (1000EUR) i can buy a Macbook Air M1 which is somewhat bigger
| but also much more usable.
|
| So while i lust after such a tiny device, in real life i'm
| pretty happy with the more practical form factor dictated by
| the keyboard size.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| I had a Psion series 5mx and it was amazing. The keyboard was
| not quite big enough for me to touch type, but it was fast
| enough to take notes. The apps were extremely well made despite
| greyscale screen. Where I was, the most popular competitor were
| Palm devices. The larger screen and integrated keyboard made me
| feel like a king compared to those around me using Palm
| devices. I was sad to hear that Psion was pivoting to phone
| operating systems with Symbian and did not get a chance to try
| any of their other devices or form factors (Psion series 7,
| netPad, etc.)
|
| Later I had a Blackberry Curve. It had the best keyboard and
| form factor for mobile typing I have ever used. The keys were
| smaller than the virtual ones on onscreen smartphone keyboards,
| but even today I prefer the physical buttons and cannot type as
| fast or as accurately as I could on the Curve.
|
| Today I use an Android smartphone with Termux
| (https://termux.dev/en/) and occasionally bring along an
| external bluetooth keyboard if I plan to use it for more
| serious work. If there were a mainstream brand Android
| smartphone with an integrated physical keyboard, I would buy
| one immediately. There are a few off-brand smartphones with
| physical keyboards, but they are not well-maintained (typically
| running older versions of Android with few or no security
| updates) and some have questionable build quality and heritage
| (e.g. might come with factory-installed malware).
| rguiscard wrote:
| There are still niche products like uConsole[1] which runs on
| battery, but the first shipment is delayed.
|
| [1] https://www.clockworkpi.com/uconsole
| stewbrew wrote:
| There are several devices like that. But I guess most people
| use their phones + bt keyboard.
| andix wrote:
| Because you can type much faster on an onscreen keyboard on any
| cheap Android tablet.
|
| I did the test on my iPad, i reach around 70% of the typing
| speed compared to my favorite PC keyboard.
|
| There are some Tablets that include a keyboard in the cover, so
| in the end you have the same functionality and much better
| usability.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| I would love to see a good device with good (physical) keyboard
| too but it would be a niche one which would make it too
| expensive (would not be able to benefit from economy of scale).
| 99% user need a mobile device to consume content and may be
| make/share photos - mass produce smartphone/tabled (without a
| keyboard) works well for this.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Most people think - if I'm already carrying a smartphone
| carrying a second computer seems like overkill. If you want a
| better keyboard just get a Bluetooth one.
| dspillett wrote:
| 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.
| regularfry wrote:
| I find as I get older and my eyesight isn't quite as good
| that what I want for that sort of use case is an external
| keyboard and a monocle, or some other head-mounted display.
| Any portable device with a stand that's any smaller than a
| laptop means leaning over and squinting.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Regarding head mounted display - I've been wanting to try
| something like NReal Air Ar glasses. Sounds like it fits
| your description:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/y155e1/my_no
| m...
| regularfry wrote:
| Hm. They look very interesting. Wonder if there's
| anywhere I could try them out. I wear glasses for mild
| astigmatism, and I've always wondered if that's a
| blocker. For things like https://brilliant.xyz/ that's
| obviously less of an issue, but also they aren't aiming
| at the same sort of display.
| regularfry wrote:
| Oh now that's even more interesting. Apparently they
| include a normal frame behind the display, so you can
| have your optician fit prescription lenses.
|
| They're in a reasonable price range, too. Looking better
| and better. Thanks for the suggestion!
| jorvi wrote:
| A foldable might help in that departement, but you
| definitely sacrifice pocketability.
| msh wrote:
| 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.
| sufehmi wrote:
| Don't
|
| Mine is now have its hinge broken.
|
| Also its battery is almost dead, have emailed Planet asking
| for replacement (and how much) - and have been ignored for
| WEEKS. Looking at online forums, some have been ignored for
| MONTHS.
|
| Keyboard feels very sloppy. And some of them must be pressed
| very hard - while others register multiple clicks even when
| touched very lightly.
|
| Forget about the camera - it sucks so bad compared to even a
| cheap chinese smartphone. Just use it to scan QR codes at
| most, and even that it have problems from time to time.
|
| And so on, so on.
| discordianfish wrote:
| I can second that. Had the Gemini. Never used it much
| because everything was awkward about it, from the lack of
| software/firmware to the keyboard until two years later the
| battery expanded and was bending the case. Not only refused
| planetcomputers to replace it for free, the only option
| they gave me was paying PS125.00 and sending it in. I've
| asked if they can send me a replacement battery so I can do
| it myself but they refused, pointing out safety issues with
| mailing a battery - while asking me to send the Gemini with
| the swollen battery to them.
| jamespo wrote:
| Last I tried on mine (admittedly several years ago) the linux
| side was severely underbaked.
| stuaxo wrote:
| 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.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I think I saw one of Planet Computers models or one close to
| it, and the keyboard keys felt like rubber keys with laptop
| caps glued on, not like real pantograph or scissors keys. I
| felt I dodged a bullet at that moment.
| criddell wrote:
| What's the battery life like? Every time I've looked for a
| modern Psion or TRS-80 Model 100, battery life is measured in
| hours instead of weeks which is a real bummer. With 30 years
| of improvements, a pair of AA batteries should be enough for
| months of daily use.
| ljf wrote:
| Looks brilliant - though a great pocketable folding keyboard
| and a 'normal' phone might be better for most people who want
| a keyboard. I had a brilliant folding Bluetooth keyboard that
| I used with my Nokia E61 before I used it with my Dell Streak
| - writing and editing text felt like a dream - but I could
| ditch the keyboard when it wasn't needed.
| rjsw wrote:
| How about a Pinephone with the keyboard case?
| ninjin wrote:
| Never tried it myself as I am holding off for the software
| stack to stabilise. But it certainly looks promising:
|
| https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pinephone-pro-
| keyboard-...
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _proper keyboard_
|
| It can be better real estate management to use a Graffiti
| virtual keyboard - that is what some of us still use on
| Android.
| sriku wrote:
| I used to own a psion way back and also had a brush with the OS
| which morphed into Symbian on Nokia iirc. I loved the software
| architecture (which borrowed aspects from the B5000), APIs and
| "services" and overall the focus on robustness. Some aspects like
| threads having their own heaps contributed to the robustness.
| [deleted]
| predictsoft wrote:
| 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 PS60 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.
| wvenable wrote:
| I recently bought an Psion 5 off of ebay -- I've never had one
| before. The one thing I can't really get over is how awful the
| screen is -- the reviews online seem to indicate that mine
| isn't unique in this regard. Hard to see in anything but
| perfect lighting.
|
| 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.
| semiprime wrote:
| 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't tried it, so you'd need to do some fiddling - in
| particular installing GTK3).
| rcarmo wrote:
| this is pretty amazing - well done!
| predictsoft wrote:
| Hi, if you could get it working on Android, I'd be willing to
| pay $5.
| semiprime wrote:
| Planet Computers already did an Android Agenda app for
| their range of handhelds: https://play.google.com/store/app
| s/details?id=com.pripla.gem...
|
| (I've not used it. I've seen people complaining that it's
| not very good, but people always complain on the Web, so
| that's not much of an indicator of anything.)
| kvetching wrote:
| How long until there's a commercial product that has a built in
| LLM? Some device that is like a personal encyclopedia that you
| can ask about anything?
| TMWNN wrote:
| https://github.com/mlc-ai/mlc-llm
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| You could download wikipedia to even the cheapest of today's
| devices. Forget the LLM and just add search.
| appstorelottery wrote:
| 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!
| edizms wrote:
| It was far from an illusion.
| dang wrote:
| Related, more or less:
|
| _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)
| nytesky wrote:
| I wrote our entire heldesk documentation in college in a Psion 3A
| while on a bus tour.
|
| Top notch. Miss physical keyboards, I feel like my parents and a
| VCR whenever I use my phone...
| anonzzzies wrote:
| I 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.
| triggercut wrote:
| 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 of birds i'd spotted and
| researched from cards app _, tough decisions needed to be made.
|
| _ Long before pokemon swept the west, our teacher would take us
| bird watching. We'd create entries in the cards app for each one
| we spotted, then research the birds in the library to fill out
| the entry. Then, as a class we'd trade (share) our research with
| each other.
| bwestergard wrote:
| 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?
| triggercut wrote:
| 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.
| garethsprice wrote:
| 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...)
| triggercut wrote:
| 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! :-)
| westcort wrote:
| Certain classic computers powered by "AA" batteries are amazing
| to use today. I have an Alphasmart Dana set up for my children to
| play chess, do word procession, and learn to program in C. It is
| much better than dealing with the potential hazards of a modern
| device.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| What did you do to make your children happy with a LCD screen,
| chess, word processing and programming in C? :-)
| westcort wrote:
| Basically, getting rid of dopamine-driven entertainment has
| been the key. Going back to the 90s with pocket versions of
| games like Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen San
| Diego has been helpful. Board games, card games, lots of
| books, antenna TV, and DVDs for entertainment has made a big
| difference!
| sauruk wrote:
| Theres a c compiler?? Can you share a link?
| classichasclass wrote:
| The Dana runs PalmOS 4 (the closest thing that ever existed
| to a Palm laptop), so any Palm-compatible C compiler will do.
| westcort wrote:
| Yes, the compiler is available here:
| https://palmdb.net/app/PocketC-Compiler And an editor is
| available here: https://palmdb.net/app/editc
| pabscon wrote:
| It is a pity that with all the interesting devices that have been
| left without updates, manufacturers do not release firmwares in a
| more organised way so that they can be used again, even if only
| in a limited way. I'm talking about devices such as the Vadem
| Clio, Nokia 770, blackberry playbook, several minipcs with
| windowsce, etc...
|
| I imagine it's such a small niche that it's not worth spending
| time developing and adapting.
| detourdog wrote:
| Gideon Gartner of Gartner research loved is Psion and as far as
| know never stopped using it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Gartner
| nickdothutton wrote:
| I had a 3a and found it more convenient to use than the
| heavy/bulky laptops of the day. My use cases were diary
| management, expenses, task tracking/todo, and short emails (via
| the add-on modem/mobile phone cable). The message app also
| allowed you to send SMS. The batteries seemed to last forever and
| being a standard size were available everywhere.
|
| I dont know if a "new psion" would sell in sufficient numbers.
| It's a device I find myself wondering about (along with a
| chocolate-bar sized version of the iphone (Nokia 6300 size)). I'd
| buy one of those for sure, for when I'm not working and need a
| phone, but dont want the full "slab" to carry around with me.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I had a series V, I much preferred the keyboard. 2x AA
| batteries to power it.
|
| I remember connecting to the internet via IRDA to my nokia 6210
| around 2000, it was an amazing glimpse of the future
| 0x445442 wrote:
| But you're not going to play this on your 286...
|
| https://youtu.be/yCUppUOarpg
| pomatic wrote:
| I worked at Psion during the Psion 3 era (and then later at
| Symbian). Hands down the best company I have ever worked for, and
| such an exciting time. Seeing the software one wrote in the hands
| of strangers in the street and on the shelves in Dixons was
| thrilling.
| causality0 wrote:
| "Bought, shouted at, and sold" is a great descriptor for Windows
| Mobile. Never has a combination of such high quality hardware and
| absolutely dogshit software ever existed.
| cainxinth wrote:
| I kept all my old PDAs (and some that belonged to friends and
| family that were tossing them out). I have a box filled with my
| Casio BOSS, Palm Pilot, and several others. They aren't worth
| much (I just checked ebay and an original, working U.S. Robotics
| Palm Pilot 5000 is selling for $50), but they are such an
| interesting memento in the history of digital tools.
| geophile wrote:
| I had a Psion 5, an amazing device. It had the same apps as the
| 3, if I remember correctly. The keyboard was astoundingly good.
| The keys, if larger, would make an excellent normal keyboard.
|
| What I really loved about the 5 was that it could run Java. I
| think it never got past JDK 1.0.2, or maybe 1.1. But it was
| clunky to use. I wrote a little shell for it, which provided
| basic functionality, including much simpler compiling and
| execution of java code. (http://geophile.com/jshell. It should
| still run, except that it relies on an obsolete parser.)
| kqr wrote:
| The Psion 3C was the device I learned programming on. My father
| upgraded to a Psion 5 and I got his 3C. It was small enough that
| it could be hidden under the pillow/blanket when my parents came
| in to make sure I was sleeping, and then I could spend long
| nights writing text-based adventure games or calculators or
| whatever.
| nologic01 wrote:
| 27 years from now it will be 2050. Will todays smartphones still
| feel "wonderful"? I highly doubt it.
| jw1224 wrote:
| Psion 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 process). Now 20
| years later and I have Psion/OPL to thank for my career.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Programming_Language
| qubex wrote:
| 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.
| mysterydip wrote:
| For those that don't get the reference:
| https://youtu.be/qTOP1BezOB8
| Endy wrote:
| It is green.
| 4fips wrote:
| No so long ago, around 2012 :), I was still using my Psion 3c +
| a short OPL program, to trigger my hacked time lapse camera
| over serial line. It worked quite reliably for years.
| https://forums.4fips.com/viewtopic.php?t=717
| jw1224 wrote:
| That's neat!
|
| Funnily enough, my next foray into coding (after OPL) would
| be scripting timelapses on my Canon PowerShot with CHDK [1]
| -- wish I'd thought of doing it with a Psion though.
|
| [1] https://chdk.fandom.com/wiki/CHDK
| dotBen wrote:
| This little comment thread made me smile! Psion 3 (no letter)
| was my first PDA when I was about 12 and then I upgraded to a
| Psion 3c. After graduating from BASIC on my father's Acorn
| A3000 and A5000 my first apps on my own computing device were
| OPL shareware. It's where I got my love of what would become
| open source for me. I also did work experience at the Psion
| Factory when I was 15 because I grew up nearby (yes, they were
| actually manufactured in Greenford in West London, in a
| warehouse behind the B&Q on the A40).
| giobox wrote:
| Exactly the same here. Stole my fathers Psion 3a and wrote a
| lottery number picker in OPL. IIRC, it even had pretty great
| syntax to easily draw the various default OS UI elements.
|
| The ability to write the application and then run it on the
| same mobile device was such a rewarding feedback loop as a kid.
| There were some pretty good books on OPL in the 90s too.
|
| The standard of the third party gaming ecosystem for the OS
| (EPOC) was shockingly good for the time as well really, there
| was an amazing golf game, also written in OPL. That Steve
| Litchfield name I remember a lot from the era, he was extremely
| active developing OPL software:
|
| > https://stevelitchfield.com/fairway.htm
| unwind wrote:
| I realized I had no idea what actual platform these were (I'm old
| enough to remember longing for one of these but never had one
| back in the day).
|
| It's powered by the NEV V20 [1] processor, which is a 16-bit chip
| that is code and pin compatible with the more famous Intel 8088.
| The NEC chip was launched in March of 1984 which is interesting
| given that the Psion 3a came in 1991.
|
| It feels like today launching a product based on a 7-year old CPU
| is more rare.
|
| It would be cool (but perhaps sacrilegious) to upgrade the
| existing motherboard to some Arm SoC/microcontroller, if
| possible. I thought of it now while writing this, so clearly
| someone has already done so.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_V20
| regularfry wrote:
| > It feels like today launching a product based on a 7-year old
| CPU is more rare.
|
| Well. The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 has an ARM Cortex-A53 SoC. The
| Zero 2 was released in October 2021, and the A53 line in
| October 2012. I don't think you'd struggle to find other A53
| devices being released after 2019.
|
| It almost feels like the A53 line is a bit of a special case,
| but then again, so was the 8088...
| unwind wrote:
| Good point, thanks! I guess the RPi's special relationship
| with Broadcom is shining through a bit there, or something.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| The operating system was called SIBO, which rather
| unimaginatively stood for SIixteen Bit Operating system.
|
| It is a direct ancestor of EPOC, which in turn was later
| renamed to "Symbian", as made popular on many Nokia devices.
| zokier wrote:
| NEC V20 was also in one of my favorite palmtops, HP 95LX also
| from 1991. Later models switched to custom chip afaik.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_95LX
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I dabbled in handhelds in that era, and always wanted a Psion but
| never got around to it.
|
| The main issues in that era for me were that they devices were
| dead ends for data. At the time, the main competitor for
| something like this was a paper planner, of course, which are
| ALSO dead ends, so it was a reasonable approach.
|
| Newton happened, though, and initially -- and people forget this
| -- it came with the Newton Desktop, which gave you access to your
| data on Windows. It synced! This was huge!
|
| And then, for reasons I've never understood, Apple dropped the
| Newton Desktop with the rev to NewtOS 2.0, which was really
| really great otherwise. Unfortunately easy desktop sync turned
| out to be a killer app in this space, because Palm came to market
| with that as their foundation and ruled the whole market for
| quite a while.
|
| I loved the Newton -- and if you've never touched one, you don't
| actually know how useful they were; it was really pretty amazing
| -- but the sync was what pushed me to Palm, where I stayed until
| the 2000s.
| andix wrote:
| I played with some of those PDAs as a kid, and honestly I never
| really got what they were used for. There was no Wi-Fi and
| internet connection via infrared was not really awesome. Using
| it while traveling abroad was extremely expensive.
|
| You were able to sync the email from your desktop PC, answer
| them offline and send them on the next sync.
|
| And you could do spreadsheets. But honestly, who really uses
| spreadsheets on their smartphone? (Which is a comparable user
| experience)
|
| So the only thing left is calendar, contacts and notes. A paper
| planner was probably more useful back then.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| That's the rub. They're from a world that was, in very
| meaningful ways, "pre-connectivity."
|
| Doing meaningful work on a portable presupposes the ability
| to continue that work when you're at a better device. We have
| that NOW, but 20-25 years ago we really didn't.
|
| People today talk about how bad handwriting rec was the death
| of the Newton, but it really wasn't. The HWR was pretty
| stellar under 2.0, even with my objectively terrible
| penmanship. What killed it was (a) its price and (b) its lack
| of connectivity to the desktop.
|
| Palm entered the market with a $299 device that was dead
| cheap, fit in your pocket, and synced with either the Palm
| Desktop or Outlook. That's what killed the Newton.
| oliwarner wrote:
| 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.
| stavros wrote:
| 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?
| oliwarner wrote:
| And power consumption is a --among other things-- a function
| of transistor size and process. A lot has changed in 30
| years, but our methods of programming these things has veered
| towards incredible wastefulness.
| cptaj wrote:
| But demand for software has also grown a lot in that
| period. If we trained software engineers and demanded
| quality to the same standards, we would not be able to meet
| demand.
|
| Those standards were also set by the limitations of
| hardware, not because people had the will to do better back
| then.
| mysterydip wrote:
| To put it another way, how much longer battery life would
| that same psion get if the CPU/board was made with modern
| transistor sizes.
| rr808 wrote:
| Probably the memory is more relevant. 1 or 2 MB!
| coldtea wrote:
| Better ask, how many things you could do per watt _now_ , if
| software had that era's leanness?
| colanderman wrote:
| Apparently 30 days of things, per the article.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Most computers are inefficient per watt due to waiting on
| IO from the human.
| coldtea wrote:
| There's always something running in the background
| (usually dozens of system services) so that's not a
| problem - plus they scale their consumption depending on
| power.
|
| Plus the waiting on IO is when they're NOT doing
| something. When they do (playing video, listing files and
| rendering thunbnails, processing video in an editing app,
| rendering the next frame in game, playing a synth part in
| a music app, applying an effect on a photo, recalculating
| an Excel after a change, and so on) is when you want them
| to be fast.
| stavros wrote:
| Well, UX is a spectrum. You can do things instantly on a
| very old machine if you don't mind using a cli. If what you
| want to do is a game, you can't get Cyberpunk, but you can
| get Pacman.
| afandian wrote:
| Imagine the speed you could play Pacman on a modern CPU!
| You could probably play a whole level in nanoseconds.
| stavros wrote:
| Oh, I often do. It increases productivity by orders of
| magnitude.
| rtontic wrote:
| Oh, but what if you had a text based implementation of
| cyberpunk? Where your imagination is the GPU (the best
| one there is)
| Endy wrote:
| You mean like A Mind Forever Voyaging?
| Semaphor wrote:
| Alas, my imagination is also text-based (aphantasia).
| londons_explore wrote:
| I occasionally fire up Windows 95 in a VM and marvel at how
| fast it is. Sometimes I use it for actual tasks, although
| it is hard to find things Windows 95 is useful for
| nowadays. My copy has office 97 installed, and I use that
| for some spreadsheety tasks.
|
| I really like being able to click anything and know I won't
| see a loading spinner.
| samstave wrote:
| Gosh windows 95 was great - especially the ability to
| navigate the OS from the keyboard alone - At one point I
| knew W95 so well I could literally navigate the OS by
| hand without a screen.
|
| An aquaintance at one point changed all the graphics
| settings to black - so ever screen, menu, text etc was
| black and you couldnt see anything. I was able to help
| her by using just the keyboard to navigate to settings
| and restore defaults. I did it from memory and key-
| clicks.
|
| Also, it was a fun OS to fuck with people in the nascient
| realm of virus' of the time, there was setting the
| desktop as an image and hiding whatever was actually on
| the desktop so nobody could click on things... remote
| access BSODs etc.
|
| I'm on an HP flagship gaming laptop now and it consumes
| probably 1,000 times more power (watts) and Compute to
| just display this single text entry form on HackerNews
| than any W95 machine back in the day...
|
| In ~1997 or so I had to shutdown a branch office in San
| Diego and when I did so, we had a number of plastic
| sealed boxes of brand-new W95 on 3.5" floppies... I kept
| them for over a decade and then sold them on Ebay as
| collectors items for $75 each... and wrote a tale about
| how they were computing history.
|
| But I had a PDA in 1993 which was by CASIO - and it had a
| little spreadsheet app on it, and I made a Gematria
| translator app in it - so I could type in any words and
| its formulae would spit out all the Gematria numbers for
| a name (the Celestine Prophecy was a famous book of the
| time)
|
| That PDA was similar to this one, but less sophisticated
| - and I had that thing for ~25 years... but unlike OP I
| didnt take out the battery and it ruind the device.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Back when phones had physical keypad buttons and T9 text,
| I could send a message without taking the phone out of my
| pocket. It looked suspicious though
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| As fond of memories as I have of the time I used Windows
| 95 and how much I learned from using it as a pre-teen, I
| mostly remember my maintenance schedule of reinstalling
| by the entire OS about once every month or so when it
| broke. I guess that jumpstarted my lifelong career/hobby
| of computer fuckery.
|
| My first PDA was a Casio too, I don't remember which
| exact model but it was a Pocket Viewer and it was great.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_Viewer
|
| My "true" PDA was an Audiovox Maestro I got used off of
| eBay. I even got a compact flash modem adapter so I could
| dial-up using it. I was shocked to see almost 10 years
| later when I got my first smart phone, a T-Mobile Dash
| 3G, that the OS had barely changed since the Audiovox
| Maestro back then!
|
| Not sure there's a point to any of this except my own
| anecdotal trip down memory lane :)
|
| Edit: autocorrect fail
| samstave wrote:
| " _Memories... they 're basically the only thing you have
| to think back on_"
|
| -- Steven Write
|
| ---
|
| I love "anecdotal trips down memory lane" -- because its
| stunning how much I have done and known in my life that I
| forget.
|
| I truly regret not listening to my mom's advice to
| journal.
| ekianjo wrote:
| That's pointless since you need to recharge your device all
| the time. It's not progress if you have a lighter that needs
| gas every 2 minutes to work.
| stavros wrote:
| Except the lighter nowadays is a flamethrower. You can get
| a lighter that needs gas every month, or a flamethrower
| that needs gas every two minutes, but complaining that the
| flamethrower needs much more gas than the lighter is silly.
| rebolek wrote:
| The problem is there are only flamethrowers now and no
| lighters.
| stavros wrote:
| I'm fairly sure you can still boy dumb phones that last a
| week+ though.
| manicennui wrote:
| I think the argument is that we mostly want to accomplish
| the same sorts of things, but now we have to use a
| flamethrower.
| stavros wrote:
| But we don't, even the fact that we browse the Web and
| watch videos would have been impossible on a Nokia 3210.
| manicennui wrote:
| We have been doing all of this since the 90s at least on
| desktop computers. Smartphones today are far more
| powerful than desktop computers from that era.
| tivert wrote:
| > 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?
|
| Obviously a lot more. The OP said the thing could run in two
| AAs _for a month_.
|
| Nowadays, almost _nothing_ can last a month on one charge
| /set of batteries. The only thing I can think of that might
| pass is a Kindle, due to the trick where it's literally shut
| down almost all the time.
| stavros wrote:
| I have a ton of devices that would disagree with you. If
| you run the Psion software on modern hardware, it'll run
| for two months.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Of course not, because no device can run at super low
| wattage with such an hypothetical OS.
| stavros wrote:
| It's not a hypothetical OS, it's what the Psion runs, and
| why not?
| ekianjo wrote:
| I did not know that the Psion OS is available for modern
| SOCs.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| Ultra low power processors exist:
|
| "GreenArrays is shipping its 144-core asynchronous chip
| that needs little energy (7 pJ/inst). Idle cores use no
| power (100 nW). Active ones (4 mW) run fast (666 Mips),
| then wait for communication (idle).
|
| Tight coding to minimize instructions executed will
| minimize power. The programmer can also reduce instruction
| fetches, transistor switching and duty cycle.
|
| Chuck Moore
|
| GreenArrays, Inc."
|
| Source: https://youtu.be/0PclgBd6_Zs
|
| They just are not widely used because ARM and similar
| processors offer much more computational power and people
| are happy charging their devices every day or so.
| tivert wrote:
| > They just are not widely used because ARM and similar
| processors offer much more computational power and people
| are happy charging their devices every day or so.
|
| This is exactly my point. Ultra low power processors
| exist, but they're not used for consumer electronics.
| Developers would rather build something bloated, quickly,
| than take the time to optimize. And technological
| advancements has taken away a lot of the pressure for
| optimization (e.g. I'm sure it was a super high priority
| to get a Psion to sip power, because a recharge was going
| to the store and paying $4 for a set of new batteries).
|
| If I were a dictator that ruled with an iron fist, I'd
| mandate that all software be developed on underpowered
| devices, then released on fast ones.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > If I were a dictator that ruled with an iron fist, I'd
| mandate that all software be developed[^W*] on
| underpowered devices, then released on fast ones.
|
| *"tested"/"run during development exclusively"
|
| You still want the text editor and more importantly
| compiler to run on beefy workstation hardware, in order
| to avoid programmer productivity problems like long
| compilation times[0] and to take advantage of CPU-
| intensive optimization techniques.
|
| 0: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/303
| Multicomp wrote:
| > If I were a dictator that ruled with an iron fist, I'd
| mandate that all software be developed on underpowered
| devices, then released on fast ones.
|
| Agreed! I wish there were widespread ways of throttling
| CPU and memory given to desktop applications today. If
| I'm testing a web application, I tell Firefox to throttle
| my network down to GPRS and see the responsiveness (or
| lack thereof) and once my work is done and GPRS is
| reasonably fast (or whatever) I can give a quick glance
| at normal 4G speeds and see my web app screams now.
|
| So why can't I lock a desktop application to settings
| like "an unused 386 PC with 24MB of RAM"?
| hinkley wrote:
| I keep wanting to fiddle with kubernetes on rPi class hardware.
| Even the minimalist versions want half a gigabyte per node.
| Admin software does not need half a gigabyte of memory.
| wynck wrote:
| If you want a kubernetes cluster to experiment, then k3s runs
| just fine on raspberry pi 4 hardware
| hinkley wrote:
| It still wants half a gig on the nodes. They all want
| 500+MB
| jowdones wrote:
| ZX-Spectrum clone (8 bit, 4 Mhz CPU) running Art Studio (an
| early Paint) loaded from floppy drive:
| https://imgur.com/a/VcaBnmP
| pydry wrote:
| Ive looked for a 5mx form factor in the form of a phone and not
| been able to find it.
| marci wrote:
| 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.
| m4lvin wrote:
| The pro1x from fxtec with lineageos plus termux is useful :-)
| mysterydip wrote:
| Looks nice, can't see pricing though. Their website
| https://www.fxtec.com/smartphones/pro1x shows "available
| March 2023" for me.
| afandian wrote:
| Did you find the Gemini PDA and friends? It's very very
| similar.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Wish I had heard about these before getting my GPD Win2.
| Looks much closer to what I wanted but didn't know was
| still an option.
| rwl4 wrote:
| I've got the GPD Win 2 and it really would be the perfect
| little computer if it had HP 100LX style calculator keys.
| I know people disagree with me on this, but it's the one
| style of tiny keyboard that I have been able to achieve a
| relatively fast typing speed with.
| mysterydip wrote:
| I like the form factor. There's a couple quirks with the
| screen and some apps/games but I can work around those.
| The real thing that keeps me from using it more is the
| heat/fan noise.
|
| I can't use it anywhere quiet because of the whizzing
| sound it generates even just at idle, let alone when I do
| something. With games on the go it's not a problem, but
| any kind of productivity work like editing code isn't
| possible.
|
| I saw there were some mods for cooling but I don't
| believe they're available anymore. Best I've been able to
| do is under-volt it to lower CPU performance, but that
| only gets me so far. I'm open to suggestions, though!
| zokier wrote:
| Planet Computers? https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/
| mikepavone wrote:
| I have an Astro Slide 5G from them (though bought via ebay)
| and I'm happy with my purchase, but it's kind of hard to
| recommend. Their track record on actually shipping pre-
| orders is kinda lousy (why I resorted to buying one second
| hand), the keyboard has some quality control issues and the
| software side feels a bit half-baked. For instance, there's
| almost always an undismissable "System Update" notification
| despite no updates being available. They did recently ship
| a system update which fixed some issues so they haven't
| abandoned it, but they have a ways to go still.
|
| I really want them to succeed. It's such a cool device
| petesergeant wrote:
| One day I will find an excuse to get one of these; they
| induce a heavy sense of nostalgia but I just don't know
| what I'd do with it
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| They never released fully functional Linux support
| bacchusracine wrote:
| >They never released fully functional Linux support
|
| Which is something that killed my interest dead for their
| hardware despite being exactly the kind of person who
| should fit their profile for a customer. But if they're
| willing to lie about Linux support, what else will they
| lie about? SO I continue to look...
| ajb wrote:
| I had a gemini, but the hinge fell apart Shame, I quite
| liked it.
| opan wrote:
| I highly recommend against anything from these guys. The
| software situation was dreadful, they pumped out new
| nearly-identical hardware too quick without fixing gemini
| issues. Seems like a cash grab. My Gemini PDA sits in my
| closet, I consider it near-useless with its electrically
| buggy keyboard and old android/ubuntu images.
|
| The PinePhone with its keyboard addon should fix most if
| not all issues the Gemini PDA had, but it looked so similar
| I still couldn't bring myself to get the keyboard for it.
| Plus I don't like the layout at all.
|
| MNT Pocket Reform seems very promising (but expensive).
| Good layout and reprogrammable keyboard. Not stuck on an
| old Android version.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Same here. I had a gemini but beside the poor software
| there was also the wobbliness of the display hinge that
| was super annoying. It was because they made it of
| springy metal.
|
| Also, the keyboard looks the exact same as the Psion 5's
| but the mechanism is much worse.
| pydry wrote:
| The pinephone would be perfect were it possible to
| install, e.g. android banking apps on it.
| afandian wrote:
| I could have written your comment! Though I sold mine.
|
| I followed pocket reform closely but the thickness of it,
| combined with the price, put me off. It's not the same
| class of device as Psion, Gemini, or the UMPCs.
| sauruk wrote:
| Just tried a gemini from them this month, and the software
| support is awful. Highly recommend against
| abawany wrote:
| I found the forums in which people had provided recipes
| for updates to Debian and Android to be helpful but it
| was a lot of work and should have been supported by the
| vendor, I agree.
| hedgehog wrote:
| 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 out of books
| because that's how some software was distributed (Apple II).
| Our current generation of PCs is probably within a factor of
| two of the minimum spec necessary for robust machine
| translation and natural language interfaces. I enjoy using the
| old hardware but it really doesn't do most of the jobs we have
| now.
| amluto wrote:
| > I remember having to choose what languages my OS
| installation was going to be able to display.
|
| What changed?
|
| Modern Windows still requires language packs, but you can
| apparently switch your primary language without a reinstall.
|
| Adobe products still corrupt already-correct Arabic text
| unless you have the correct edition or add-on or something.
|
| It was indeed annoying to transfer files at least until the
| Internet and flash drives were widely available, but that's
| been more than 20 years.
| oliwarner wrote:
| 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 been the way.
| Newer software drives new hardware sales and we're on
| yesteryear's supercomputers but why?
| anyfoo wrote:
| > 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 fidelity of games has overall steadily improved
| since the inception of computer games, with some
| astonishing milestones along the way.
|
| So games are a category of software that _did_ (and
| continues to do) make efficient use of ever-improving
| computer hardware. Not all of them, not in every aspect,
| but the overall progress is obvious.
|
| Office software on the other hand...
| oliwarner wrote:
| 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.
| anyfoo wrote:
| > Compared to productivity software, sure, but cycle-for-
| cycle, [...] they had to find ways to trick
|
| That's true, but I think the idea was more that other
| software has not only been mostly stagnant (that, too),
| but often actually regressing in performance. Games on
| the other hand have been steadily improving. Maybe not
| keeping up the full pace, as the mathematical and
| hardware tricks became unnecessary and were traded in for
| ease of development, but game developers at least overall
| did make use of the better hardware. They stopped doing
| the super clever stuff when it was just not necessary
| anymore while still providing better fidelity.
|
| > Doesn't sound like gaming to me.
|
| Eh, it's part of it. And it's not like other aspects did
| not profit from the better hardware as well. Later
| Civilization titles are pretty compute-intensive between
| turns, for more complex gameplay. Earlier chess programs
| had to "think" a very long time for not that great chess
| performance...
| whartung wrote:
| Sure, but to that note, we've been at "enough computer" for a
| vast array of tasks for a long, long time now.
|
| Obviously, things that move boatloads of bits (mostly media)
| have well benefited from the vast amounts of RAM and
| incredible bandwidth of modern machines. And, of course,
| video games, which will always push limits.
|
| But outside of that, word processing, data collecting,
| "printing checks from AP", those peaked a long time ago. And,
| of course, I appreciate how businesses collect vast amounts
| of data today (because they can, because storage is free),
| but core business functions, transaction processing, that's
| pretty well plateaued as well.
| 6510 wrote:
| > So sort of, but let's not look at the past too wistfully.
|
| why?
|
| > I also remember when moderately long text had to be split
| across files (even multiple floppies if you were writing a
| book).
|
| 2MB is 2 million bytes, The average book is something like
| 0.5
|
| > I remember having to choose what languages my OS
| installation was going to be able to display.
|
| This is a bad thing?
|
| > Farther back I remember not having the spare cash for...
|
| lol, irrelevant!
|
| > Our current generation of PCs is probably within a factor
| of two of the minimum spec necessary for robust machine
| translation and natural language interfaces.
|
| I have no idea what you just said. People for the most part
| read/write text and watch videos. This would work much better
| if we eliminated compute entirely.
|
| > I enjoy using the old hardware but it really doesn't do
| most of the jobs we have now.
|
| imho the way to look at old hardware is to look at only the
| good features we've lost. For example, I cant think of
| anything I want from a c64 except from sprite collision and
| having menu entries starting with function keys [F1] because
| that worked so insanely fast compared to a mouse. The rest
| was just coping with the state of the art.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| The person you're replying to was talking about the Apple
| II era, when floppies held less than 200k at best.
| Availability of 2.44 MB floppy drives was an extremely late
| development, and IIRC rare to actually find in the wild.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Extremely rare. I never encountered one, and I had a lot
| of niche stuff in the 90s.
|
| 1.44MB was the effective capacity of floppies until they
| died out. There was stuff like VGACopy that could format
| them with higher capacity (since floppy controller access
| was fairly low level), but it was an uncommon thing among
| tinkerers, the disks themselves were not marketed for
| more than 1.44MB, and I doubt they were tested above
| their nominal capacity (and even at that they were not
| exactly known as super reliably).
| dredmorbius wrote:
| FWIW, I ran across the splitting-text-into-files problem _on
| Android_ using one of the highly-recommended note-taking
| apps.
|
| Discovering Termux and having a large suite of Linux
| terminal-based tools available resolved that and many, many,
| many more frustrations.
| fluoridation wrote:
| In every example you listed the limiting factor is memory or
| storage size, not computing speed.
| [deleted]
| turbobooster wrote:
| [dead]
| lynx23 wrote:
| On a positive note, HN is one of the very few sites left which
| is still simple enough to be used with older browsers. I am
| writing this comment in the text console (no X11) of a
| Raspberry Pi 3 with a braille display (no monitor connected) as
| the output device. Using lynx as a pretty reliable browser. It
| is the exception, I know, I am a freak by nature of my
| disability, but I am also proud to know this niche still exists
| and it is actually possible to do _some_ interesting things
| online with very little resources.
| oliwarner wrote:
| That surprises me.
|
| I'm a webdev and I've long considered HN to be a bit of an
| atrocity in terms of markup and a11y. Nested tables, no sr
| text to explain the thread structure, JS-only links scattered
| around. It works but only by the mercy of many text-based
| browsers being started in the 90s, so they're used to this
| pre-semantics rubbish.
|
| I can't tell if it's hubris but if I were king for a day, I'd
| like to think I'd leave HN in a better state. At the very
| least, I'd clean up the cruft.
| ezconnect wrote:
| Wow, I never knew HN layout was using tables. That was
| surprising, all this years and I never checked.
| bbkane wrote:
| HN loads large amounts of comments really quickly on my
| phone's browser and there's no jank or lag when navigating
| it, and no popups. I love it, especially compared to the
| pain of using Reddit's mobile site for similar comment-
| browsing tasks
| bombcar wrote:
| It's annoying because so much content SHOULd be perfectly
| accessible as described, but frameworks and browsers just
| fight it at every step.
|
| Too bad Apache didn't have a Gopher server built in by
| default.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > What has vanished, is our ability to do general-purpose
| computing at ~8MHz.
|
| _ahem_ https://xkcd.com/768/
| tengwar2 wrote:
| And in small memory. I once had to prepare a church address
| list on a Psion 3 or 3a with 256kB of memory. That was total
| memory, used for both execution and battery backed RAM disk.
| I entered the addresses in to a database, exported to a
| spreadsheet for sorting and putting the columns in the right
| order, then exported to word processor document for
| formatting, and printed over IRDA. No third party sw
| required. And the thing was so stable even with third party
| sw that it was quite likely that it was never rebooted before
| it was replaced years later.
| rebolek wrote:
| I know there's XKCD for everything but I wonder if there
| should be.
| fragmede wrote:
| It's in the name of efficiency. Instead of repeating the
| same conversation about, say, standards, you can just say
| 927 (which is 900, Yoda's age, plus 27 which is memorable
| because of the 27-club. Or also 3 squared = 9 and 3 cubed =
| 27), and everyone will know what you're talking about and
| you can skip that bit of conversation.
| tomcam wrote:
| No. I bet you could make a slightly better one and increase
| diversity in the online humor world.
|
| https://xkcd.com/927/
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| Considering how "on the nose" this one is, I'm not sure
| what point you're trying to make.
| bayindirh wrote:
| 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 memory leaks, and reduce temporary variables to
| save that space.
|
| 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.
| thorncorona wrote:
| > 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.
| toyg wrote:
| "let's MAKE MONEY now, fuck the energy we waste and the
| planet we kill, goddammit"
| bayindirh wrote:
| No, no. It's not money. It's _value_. Value for our
| customers, our employees, and most importantly, our
| shareholders.
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