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Hewson on MS Word revision
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 11, 2013 at 08:48 PM
Since we are exploring the attic…
I have an Amstrad Notepad (remember the flat black portable word processor?) and a Psion Series 5. They were both excellent in what they were made for; I once took the Notepad at a volunteer camp and used it most of the summer for data entry and texts, without the need for electric power. As for the Psion, if its screen hadn’t died, I would still be using it for writing; I’ve never experienced a better portable keyboard.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jan 11, 2013 at 11:45 PM
I do remember those (sadly). I have, lurking in a drawer, no less than TWO Psion 5mx’s - which are amazing machines. And my favourite of all, which I also lived on, much like your Amstrad: an AlphaSmart Dana keyboard running PalmOS. Still unbeatable with a ca. 25-hour battery life. I used to use that all the time. And yes, it also had a fantastic keyboard. It even supported WiFi (although not very well!).
The machine I always wanted but never did get my hands on was the early Psion MC Series laptop (the MC 400, to be precise), which was so far ahead of its time (and so expensive) that it went straight down the toilet. But the 5mx’s (actually, they’re the rebadged Ericsson variant) kind of made up for it. You can even touch type on them if you don’t mind severe bruising and the likelihood that the Psion will, after a couple of minutes, end up whizzing round the room as you misfire on the front edge of the keyboard.
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 12, 2013 at 12:05 AM
My Palm TX is within arm’s reach because it’s still the quickest way to access some of my old addresses. It’s literally one click: the Address book button also switches the device on. And the battery still lasts for over a month, after all these years.
In contrast, on my iPod Touch it’s at least 3, sometimes 4 or more clicks/swipes (depending on what screen/app I was on when I last closed it). Why does it have to be this way? Oh why?....
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 12, 2013 at 07:15 AM
MadaboutDana wrote:
>The machine I always wanted but never did get my hands on was the early
>Psion MC Series laptop (the MC 400, to be precise), which was so far
>ahead of its time (and so expensive) that it went straight down the
>toilet.
For reference
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2023689_2025276_2026975,00.html
http://justwebware.com/mc400/mc400.html
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 12, 2013 at 08:06 AM
Dr Andus wrote:
>In contrast, on my iPod Touch it’s at least 3, sometimes 4 or more
>clicks/swipes (depending on what screen/app I was on when I last closed
>it). Why does it have to be this way? Oh why?....
Development is no longer guided by the engineer, but by the consumer. There’s a massive difference in overall processing power between the Palm and the iPod, but the vast part of the additional power is used for the graphics, multitouch interface etc. Much effort has been put in making the modern machines work ‘intuitively’ (swipes, magnify etc.) and the tools have been rebuilt so that nobody will ever need to read a Friendly Manual again. On the way, we may have actually lost quite a lot of functionality—as evidenced by this forum’s overall preference for installed software vs. cloud webware.
It took me a very long time to switch from WordPerfect 5.1 and Paradox for DOS to its Microsoft counterparts for Windows. I frankly never saw the point. Especially since I’m still looking for minimal interface software, like the dark screen text editors recently discussed here—similar to the screen layout I have for Brainstorm (bright letters over dark screen).
In brief, overall hardware and software development has not been driven by existing users but by the efforts to further expand the market. A relatively recent example was the OLPC concept (a cheap lightweight machine that anyone on earth can own and use), which led to netbooks, and now to tablets.
Let’s face it: we have been privileged specialists and we are privileged no more. We can only hope that, as in the case of David Hewson which started this discussion, that we will be happy with what the market delivers to us.