PSION Organiser II
==================

Well, a PDA from the second half of 1980s [1]. Much older than any Palm
(Pilot) PDA. It has no touchscreen but the actual keyboard (but a weird
and reduced one, for sure). And the  screen is black and white LCD with
2 (two)  text lines.  The latest  and greatest LZ  and LZ64  models had
4-line displays (though the physical size  of the screen is the same so
the  text on  four-liners  is much  smaller than  on  the old  two-line
models).

I have had  two working Organisers. One  of them has been  the LZ model
(four line  screen and  32kB of RAM)  and the second  one has  been the
older CM model (two  line screen, 8 kB of RAM). During  the time I have
got a lot of peripherals (the external memory eraser, two - now defunct
- portable printers, a barcode scanner or the thermometer). And several
memory modules  with various software,  of course (a  spreadsheet, some
translators and so).

The problem was  that I have not  wanted to use the  LZ for everything.
Moreover, some  software is in  older versions which were  designed for
two-line screens. The LZ can use them but the top and bottom lines (and
some columns on sides) are not used. So this software uses only a small
part of the  display. So it have  made sense to use an  older device in
such cases.

Unfortunately, the CM model has too small RAM so many of these software
pieces refuse to start  on it at all. So when  there was an opportunity
then I have opted for the more  modern XP model. It's still a two-liner
but it has 16kB of RAM. The machine  I have hot is somewhat used but it
works  and the  screen  is intact.  At  the moment  I  only tested  the
Spreadsheet [2]  (I have  versions for  both sizes  for the  screen). I
didn't worked in the CM but here it works!


A side  note: As I  wrote in  the previous post  I decided to  limit my
purchases of unnecessary  gadgets. I ordered this one  well before such
decision but it arrived only y now.


These two-liners  have their  problems - for  example they  cannot work
with dates after the December 31,  1999 (so, they actually have the Y2k
bug).  Ihis  is  not  fully fixable,  unfortunately.  Probably  no  one
expected that  they can survive  for so long...  The LZ models  have no
such problems.  All the models  have hard-coded database of  cities and
counties. So  my time  zone is "Czechoslovakia"  and more  eastern time
zone is in the "USSR", for example.  And there is a West Germany (Bonn)
and the East one, too. ;-)

The PDA  functions are of  course somewhat  limited, the LZ  models are
better than the  older ones but they still are  not comparable with the
earliest Palm Pilots  (of course, the oldest Pilot is  at least 5 years
younger than the youngest Organiser II).

They are cool and durable devices, anyway.


By the way, do the rechargeable 9V batteries exist?



References:

[1] http://archive.psion2.org/org2/brief1.htm
[2] https://www.jaapsch.net/psion/mansprdsht2.htm

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