
Upgrading a 20 Year Old PDA - CarolineW
http://hackaday.com/2016/05/01/upgrading-a-20-year-old-pda/
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tluyben2
I have many of those here boxed; I was glued to them for everything I did when
they came out. Very handy and long battery life. If we could put a Pyra
mobile[0] spec into that, the perfect handheld would be born. Although; I like
the design of the Zaurus[1] and particularly the SL-C860 even more but the
keyboard of the Psion is far superior... Shame big companies do not find it
worthwhile anymore to pursue it anymore, then again, it makes room for the
Pandora & Pyra which give more freedom (in a clunky but quite usable package).

[0] [https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/](https://pyra-
handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/) [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus)
[2]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Za...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Zaurus_sl-c860.JPG/330px-
Zaurus_sl-c860.JPG)

~~~
dTal
The Pyra CPU board is a separate PCB, and will probably be sold separately (as
well as all the schematics released) - you could probably build around that
directly.

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robin_reala
The actual project logs in time order are at
[https://hackaday.io/project/4042/logs](https://hackaday.io/project/4042/logs)

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adventureloop
I have one of these, I got it purely to do a build like this inspired by
someone else in the hackerspace. There must be a load of people that want
hardware like this in and are in various stages of getting it.

I was reading some of the reverse engineered specs when the pocketchip was
announced last year. My hope is to see more devices that fit the mold of what
people want, rather than what will sell in the market.

It is getting easier to produce human scale hardware like the pocketchip, if
we don't see more diverse hardware for more diverse users I shall be very
upset.

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protomyth
Is there a modern version of this form factor? I miss this and the TRS-80
Model 100's of the world.

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dTal
Pyras are up for pre-order. Bit expensive but extremely sexy. I'm getting one
(in Thinkpad black, hopefully).

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emmelaich
Cool story:

Psions outperformed so-called enterprise HP-UX machines in Java
microbenchmarks when they were released.

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bluesign
I spent countless hours on this PDA with tethering over my mobile phone :)
Form factor and keyboard was really amazing.

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jquast
I enjoyed the Zaurus C3000 very much and ran OpenBSD on it, eventually
donating it to an openbsd developer when I finished my fun with it -- a PDA
that can run X11, very nice!
[http://www.openbsd.org/zaurus.html](http://www.openbsd.org/zaurus.html)

I remember thinking at the time, "If only this were also a phone, that'd be
perfect!" \-- within a few short years, the iPhone was exactly that, even
using the same CPU ARM architecture!

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y04nn
I've got a Psion5 recently, the software is very good. But the keyboard is not
as good as it looks like and the screen lack contrast. But overall it's a good
device.

~~~
Frenchgeek
The psion revo has a much better screen, in my experience.

~~~
fractallyte
And a better, curvaceous design, by virtue of the mainboard and keyboard being
integrated. Plus there's no flexing - and eventual breakage - of the screen
cable, which was a serious design flaw in the 5mx.

I'd really like to see the Revo's design scaled up to the size of a 5mx, with
an improved keyboard. _That_ would be the ultimate mini-computer!

~~~
Frenchgeek
Add an e-ink display to it too...

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ChuckMcM
I found my top of the line Wizard (nee Zarus) the other day and fished out
some batteries and turned it on. So quaint, so challenging to read. What I
liked about it is that it worked for years (and still does what its supposed
to) for years without updates or upgrades.

I think if I was going to do a CPU swapout I'd try to use an ARM chip, that
said construction was not designed for remanufacturing :-)

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gaius
I have one here, still fully working! No way up uplink it to anything anymore
sadly, long time since phones had IrDA, let alone dialup for the other end.

~~~
JohnTHaller
There are IrDA USB adapters for around $20.

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sudojudo
Not a hack, but the universal remote in my living room is a Palm m500 running
NoviiRemote. It works better than anything else I've tried, and people are
giving old Palms away; think I have three of them at this point.

Also, it's fun to tell people that it's my work PDA when they notice it. _Beam
me your business card. Oh, your iPhone 9000 can 't do that? Okay then._

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terinjokes
You remind me that I have a NoviiRemotr license. Should see if I can find a
T|X or something.

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sbmassey
I have to admit, the idea of being able to run a fully fledged emacs on
something like a Psion form factor is quite inspiring.

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maxxxxx
I had one until the display developed problems and this was a great machine
for writing or working with spreadsheets on the road. Small, great battery
life and fast.

