Forgot to mention this. Tomorrow I'll be part of a roundtable discussion at an NYC meeting of the International Federation of Information Processing's history .SIG. I have 15 minutes to talk about early British mobile computers. Going to focus on Husky (which should be famous but isn't) and Psion (which needn't be famous but is).
I really liked the Psion, still have one in the drawer. It might not have a graphic display but it would sync E-Mail and could work with Microsoft Office files. When I swapped from my Psion to a Compaq iPaq Pocket PC I was surprised about the way the functionality changed. It had to convert Word files to Pocket Word and in doing so it lost much of the info. The Huskey was nice. When I worked at NERC we had a few. The only problems we had was the displays didn't work in Antarctica..... Dave Wade G4UHM
-----Original Message----- From: vcf-midatlantic [mailto:vcf-midatlantic- bounces@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org] On Behalf Of Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic Sent: 26 May 2016 17:46 To: Vcf-ma List <Vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> Cc: Evan Koblentz <evan@snarc.net> Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Evan @ IFIP
Forgot to mention this. Tomorrow I'll be part of a roundtable discussion at an NYC meeting of the International Federation of Information Processing's history .SIG. I have 15 minutes to talk about early British mobile computers. Going to focus on Husky (which should be famous but isn't) and Psion (which needn't be famous but is).
They took us on a private tour of the old Bell Labs (now it's Nokia, which bought Alcatel-Lucent) in Murray Hill NJ today. We spent a couple of hours there. Photos were not allowed. Among many highlights, we saw the room where they perfected (not "invented") the transistor and also the room where K&R (and Thompson) did C and Unix. Neat! They said VCFed could potentially have a demo for BL employees * in that very room * one of these days.
I don't think the Psion 1 and 2 are well known or well regarded.. I have some, but no idea why I bought them or what to do with them... On 27 May 2016 02:53, "Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic" < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
I really liked the Psion, still have one in the drawer. It might not have a graphic display but it would sync E-Mail and could work with Microsoft Office files
You're thinking middle/later Psion (Series 3-5-7-Netbook). I'm focusing more on early Psion (1-2).
I don't think the Psion 1 and 2 are well known or well regarded.. I have some, but no idea why I bought them or what to do with them...
Just keep them. Psion has a cult following. The cultists insist the Psion 1 was the "first" PDA (they're wrong by at least six years), but either way it's a neat little machine and rather coveted by those who collect pocket computers. I interviewed their first employee (CTO, hired by the founder) for my book published last summer. Got some good stories from him.
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Dave Wade -
Evan Koblentz