
AlphaSmart - mrzool
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart
======
ketank
Hello all, this is Ketan Kothari (one of the co-founders of AlphaSmart). First
I am honored to see such fans to a product that is over 25 years old. But
every now and then I think, it would be awesome to create a modern version of
AlphaSmart.

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AstroAdam
Hey Ketan! I am one of the creators of Freewrite which many consider to be a
modern incarnation of the venerable AlphaSmart. We took a different approach
but my cofounder and I have all the respect in the world for what you all did
with the AlphaSmart. Many people in the writing community still covet their
AlphaSmart which is no small feat for an electronic decades old! All the best
to you and if you ever want to try out a Freewrite, let me know.

~~~
WCityMike
No disrespect but the half grand price tag makes your creation very far from
being a spiritual successor to the AlphaSmart.

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AstroAdam
It's definitely not the spiritual successor since the Freewrite is built
differently and for a different market. Even so, the Alphasmart was about
$250ish when new.

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oh_teh_meows
Does anyone know of a similar tool but for programming/connecting to a remote
terminal? Electronic ink display with week or even month long battery life?
CPU doesn't need to be super fast, just enough to do some fun coding would be
sufficient :]

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ravenstine
I would LOVE something like that.

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5cribble
I have a Neo 2 that I use for writing, as I find laptops/tablets are way too
easy to get distracted with. It's light, rugged - as you'd expect for
something designed to be used by schoolkids - and lasts a ridiculously long
time on 3 AAA batteries. I just did an entire Nanowrimo on it, on a not-fresh
set of batteries, and it's still going strong now.

There've been attempts in recent years to create something similar but more
modern - with an E Ink display and cloud sync - but they cost a fortune
compared to the pittance I paid for my Neo second-hand.

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owenversteeg
Yeah, every time I see one of the modern ones with syncing and mechanical
keyboards and whatnot I'm super interested, then I see the price tag and
forget about it. I think I'll just go with a Dana or Neo or Neo 2. (Still not
sure if there's any reason to go for the Neo 2 over the Neo.)

~~~
5cribble
I think the Neo 2 has a bit more storage capacity than the Neo. The main thing
for me was that, as it's a more recent model, I figured it might have a longer
life, especially considering things like the internal backup battery (which is
replaceable, but involves opening everything up).

~~~
techer
I believe they are the same apart from some extra academic programs and the
look.

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SwellJoe
I bought one of these on eBay about a year ago. I use it for writing down
ideas and notes when I'm off the grid and battery power is at a premium (I
live in an RV and travel a lot). I thought I'd also use it for distraction-
free writing even when power is not at a premium, but the display is too small
and dark and interaction with the keyboard is a little too limited for that.

I would love for there to be a modern variant of this, however. I tried
figuring out how much it would cost to produce and the screen is definitely a
big limiting factor. Ideally, one would use an e-ink or similar display, so
you get very high resolution and readability but also very good battery life.
While computing and storage have gotten massively better and cheaper since
this thing was new, displays that use nearly no power are still pretty pricey.

I used to have a netbook with an SSD and a tiny Linux OS installation that I
used for similar things, but the battery stopped holding charge and replacing
it seemed too expensive. And, it never had battery life comparable to the
AlphaSmart, which seems to run forever (literally, like weeks or months) on
three AA batteries.

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david-cako
There's an author I remember reading about that religiously uses one of these
to write at cafes and whatnot. I can't remember who.

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ndespres
We had a few sets of these in my high school in the late 90s. English
instructors would hand them out for essay writing, and you could plug them
into the PS/2 or ADB ports on the full size computers in the lab to dump your
early drafts into a full-time featured word processor for markup and
formatting. Probably cut down on the number of computers they needed per
student as most didn't yet know how to touch-type yet. Anyone who had fine
motor function difficulties was given one for daily writing tasks as well.

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Doctor_Fegg
I had an Amstrad NC100 Notepad, a similar beast but dating from 1992:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100)

In turn this was a near clone of the 1988 Cambridge Computer (Clive Sinclair)
Z88:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88)

An ultraportable word-processor, much like the AlphaSmart. The hassle in
copying documents across from the NC100 (via a shonky RS232-to-AppleTalk
cable) is what killed it for me. But a lovely piece of kit nonetheless.

Today, for a portable, affordable writing machine, I use an HP 11in Chromebook
running GalliumOS and FocusWriter - as light as a MacBook but costs just £200.

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jscholes
I went to a school which had a department helping visually impaired kids. I
couldn't see enough to use one but partially sighted students would bring one
to every lesson before we moved onto laptops. Presumably it was the AlphaSmart
2000, as I do remember them having a PS/2 port.

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jmull
Ah! I have one of these in my basement!

(The kind of "battle scar" you have from being involved with educational
software long enough.)

Palm, for me, illustrated the possibilities of mobile computing the first and
best for the time. In the educational space, the alphasmart was an incredible
promise.

Through the educational software company I worked for at the time I did some
work on software for the Alphasmart, Newton, and emate. Unfortunately, this
stuff didn't really take off, though in hindsight it was clearly just a matter
of an idea being ahead of itself.

BTW, there are still some things modern devices can learn from the alphasmart.
E.g., it's not indestructible but generally you can drop/throw one around
pretty casually without breaking it. likewise, the OS and user environment
wasn't "delicate".

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afandian
This reminds me of the Apple eMate I used at [high] school. A large screen
Apple Newton in an indestructable polycarbonate clamshell with a nearly-full-
size keyboard. It was perfect. A great word processor (also drawing,
spreadsheet), designed for instant on and concentrating on one thing at once,
with enough Apple tech (not sure how much was borrowed from the Mac OS stack)
to get online and to print full b/w graphics to Mac compatible printers.

Steve jobs killed Newton.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300)

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lproven
I just bought one, used, on eBay last month. I'm pleased with it, although the
keyboard action is very stiff -- and I speak as an IBM Model M fan.

As a modern version, some kind of enclosure for a Raspberry Pi would seem the
obvious answer. Then all it needs is a text-only Linux distro -- easy enough
-- and a decent editor with a modern standard UI, such as TextGrinder or
Tilde.

ErgoEmacs with a facelift and modernisation might do, but not without it.
Ditto Vi. Seen the joke?

"I've been using Vi for a couple of years now. Mostly because I can't work out
how to exit."

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ldjb
These devices were used a fair bit when I was in secondary school here in the
UK during the mid-to-late '00s. They were primarily available for pupils with
special needs, however they were also used by those who had injured their arms
and found it difficult to write.

I hadn't realised they had since been discontinued, though I suspect the
increasing affordability of laptops may have played a part.

~~~
keithpeter
Yup: I used to use one of the older models for drafting rough text on the
train on the way to various College annexes. Light, lasted months on a set of
batteries, and mimicked a USB keyboard - cost me twenty quid off ebay. I left
mine in a drawer when I left sometime in 2007. We had class sets of the newer
Neo version shown here for SLDD students.

I'm imagining tablets with onscreen keyboards and cheaper laptops have seen
them off.

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tdeck
We had those at my elementary school. I think they liked that you could only
use them to write, not to play games.

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thesmallestcat
I might be inventing this but I swear they came with a hangman game.

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filleokus
I have a memory of that as well. But I guess, depending on how old the kids
are, playing hangman might be a quite useful game to play. To increase
vocabulary etc.

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saagarjha
I remember using something similar called the Fusion back in elementary
school. It had a built-in typing "instructor" and we were supposed to use it
to learn touch typing.

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tboughen
We still use these now in the UK secondary school where I teach. Generally
they are given to students who have a short term inability to write (broken
arm etc).

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BenjiWiebe
I was taught to type on them in 7th/8th grade. 2009/2010ish. At a parochial
school.

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nmca
I think I had one of these for a while at school in Canada! Much nostalgia.

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quinndupont
Not to turn HN into ebay, but if anyone wants to buy my Freewrite (modern
version of AlphaSmart, as the developers point out below), hit me up:
iqdupont.com

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alexasmyths
Neo released "August 2004" \- from that to iPhone in 4 years ...

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ClassyJacket
Three, even. And only two and a half to the announcement! Consumer tech seemed
to move blisteringly fast then. That being said, I feel like the AlphaSmart
Neo would've looked somewhat out of date even when it was released. But I love
these cool old pieces of tech, and I'd love to see LGR or Ashens or similar
review it.

~~~
SllX
>Consumer tech seemed to move blisteringly fast then.

If I recall correctly one of the "major" features of Windows Vista that
Microsoft was advertising back in 2006 was a little screen OEMs might add to
their laptop that would let you see the time, check your mail and I think
check your appointments without having to fully open your laptop up. Was
supposed to be a convenience and battery saving feature.

I don't think it was a particularly hyped feature, but it is one of those
little things that shows where Microsoft was at in 2006. Of course back then
there was a decent chance that any organization interested in that feature
probably already had standard issue Blackberries, Treo 650s and whatever WinCE
device and operating system name was in vogue at the time so there probably
was never too much point to it.

Then Steve Jobs gets on stage in January 2007 and announces the iPhone, and in
2008 or 2009, native ActiveSync support in iPhone OS (remember when it was
called that?).

Apologies for my off-topic ramble, but when I saw your comment, it occurred to
me that yes indeed, tech did seem to move blistering fast back then. Really
nobody knew or was completely sure what direction we were heading and all
sorts of interesting approaches were attempted in a short span of time.
Looking at pictures of the AlphaSmart Neo though, it looks pretty standard for
tech at the time. Not that many tech companies had really figured out how to
make hardware even remotely stylish yet.

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oatmealsnap
What is the relevance of this post? Just a link to a Wikipedia article with no
description?

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notatoad
I'm going to assume that it had a worthwhile title that provided context, and
the HN moderators reverted the actual useful part of the post to comply with
the silly "original titles only" rule.

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mrzool
OP here. Your assumption is wrong, I posted it exactly like this.

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notatoad
oh. why?

