6d ago

Retro tech: Using the PSION Series 5 in 2023

Sometimes I find myself going back to older technology. I …

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Has a psion5, brilliant tech. Loved it. The calendar was way ahead of its time, 2AA batteries gave weeks of life and you could just about touch type on the keyboard. If I could get it to synch with office I'd be tempted to dig it out again, it really was the future.

Psions were amazing. I had a Psion 3 in the 90s. That thing fell out of my pocket when I was cycling and a van drove over it - still worked fine. I'd like to see an iPhone manage that

There was a modern handheld with this form factor maybe 8 years ago named the Gemini. It shipped with a version of Android, though could be flashed to run a Linux, if you didn’t mind not knowing if will wake up from sleep. I still have one sitting in the back of a drawer.

Learnt programming as a kid on my dads PSION. I owe my career to that device. It came with a BASIC manual on paper. That must have been the most important part of the package.

I had a "Diamond Mako," aka a Psion Revo Plus. Neat device, but I just wasn't "on the go" enough to really need it. It was slightly smaller than the 5, IIRC, and it definitely wasn't as good for typing as even a Netbook (another good candidate for a "writerDeck" btw), but it was very slick, and the word processor in particular I remember being very good. IIRC it had NiCAD or NiMH AAA batteries hard-wired into it.
- They were NiCad batteries, which would leak, and then completely eat and destroy the charging/temperature board.
  Source: I have one and uh, they did and it's completely useless because it won't power on without the batteries attached, and I'm at a total loss as to how to or where even I could get/fix that charging board.
  Shame since you're right, it's super cool, but must-have-a-battery was a horrible design choice that's made repairing it seem like it's probably not possible - I'd have to buy another one to get a working charger board at which point, well, I have a 2nd one so why fix the first?

I would like to have a PSION as a portable writerdeck, but they are surprisingly expensive. Used ones can fetch 100€+

Still use my 5MX a couple of times a year… one of the most amazing pieces of technology I’ve ever owned.

I have a friend who collects PDAs and he has lots of different psion machines.
I'll never forget when he brought a 5 MX in to college and showed me it running window windowmaker in our physics class. I was blown away.

9 comments