Retro writing

tech
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Mateusz Urbanowicz has a series of article about “retro writing”, or using old systems for distraction-free dedicated word processing work. He is based in Japan, which lead to some interesting devices unknown to westerners.

It is a 14 parts blog series started in 2020.

  1. Casio and Pomera: This introduces the 1997 Casio Cassiopeia A-51. The Cassiopeia, known in Europe at least, was a line of pocket PC made by Casio and running Windows CE. It also introduces Pomera, a manufacturer of stand-alone dedicated writing devices, with the not retro albeit discontinued DM30, an e-ink screen with a normal size keyboard.

  2. ARDATA: This introduces the 1997 ARDATA made by NEC, a machine to write in Japanese only.

  3. Psion 5mx: This 1999 British device, the Psion 5mx was designed as a PDA. But it has a keyboard that makes it possibly suited for writing. Unfortunately the keyboard frustrated the author and with other issues like the screen readability, the 5mx didn’t feel like a good option.

  4. Palm PDA: No need to introduce the Palm. Do I? The author tried a Palm m500 (from 2001) with a foldable keyboard and tried to pit it against the Pomera DM30. And it seems to work well, with a form factor that looks weird.

  5. Mobile Gear: Another NEC device, and another Windows CE device, the Mobile Gear is straight from 1999. Between the keyboard and the features, hardware and software, it seems to provide one of the best experience to the author.

  6. HP palmtops: Back when HP wasn’t a scammy company, they made interesting hardware. The LX series of pocket PC were among them. Palmtop PC HP 200LX with MS-DOS was a PC XT compatible. That mean you could run Wordstar, WordPerfect or even Microsoft Word for DOS. And you could apparently plug an external keyboard to supplement the horrible chicklet the device is equiped with. The HP 360LX however is a Windows CE 2.0 device, and the mean much less choice in software unlike with the Mobile Gear (not all versions are equal).

  7. the DevTerm: Not a retro device, you can still buy it from the manufacturer today. I’ll skip this, but it’s a device I could come back to talk about it if I wasn’t turned off by the “90 business day” delivery time.

  8. Psion 3mx: The predecessor to the Psion 5mx, the 1998 upgrade to the Psion 3 series is the Psion 3mx. I had a series 3 at one point and while impressive in features it’s keyboard wasn’t the best, and the hinges were a weak point. Also the connectivity was totally proprietary, making it difficult to get the data out of it if you don’t have the cable. What if you wrote your best seller and couldn’t even export it?

  9. printing on the go: Printing on the go might be useful. In an era before USB it might be less universal. The Fujitsu XM-30T works with Windows CE and the Mobile Gear, it has a DIN connector or IrDA (Infrared proximity transmission) connectivity. It prints on thermal paper like a FAX, smaller than A4. And it doesn’t work with the Palm.

  10. AlphaSmart DANA: The AlphaSmart DANA is a PalmOS device from 2002, with a full form factor keyboard and wider screen than a Palm PDA. The author isn’t convinced of the usefulness of PalmOS on this device, considering it more like a hinderance, including to export files.

  11. Casio HW-300JS: The 1987 Casio HW 300JS comes with a 2 line LCD screen and a thermal transfer printer. With only enough RAM for 6000 characters and a very slow printer, this is probably just a more compact typewrite, with Japanese typing capabilities, which at the time was probably a feat. The printer output can be OCR if you need to import into your modern computer. This is really from the 80’s.

  12. The Panaword: The Panaword FW-K101, made by Panasonic, also comes from the 80s. This is more a luggageable system, with CRT screen, built-in thermal printer (transfer ribbon for use with regular paper, or thermal paper), and a floppy drive. Without printer, this would be like an Osborne or a Keypro that were available a few years earlier. Dedicated to write in Japanese though.

  13. the Pomera DM30: Introduced in the first post, the Pomera DM30 is a modern device, from 2018.

  14. Traveler at last: Another modern device the Freewrite Traveler.

  15. Pomera DM250: And finally the latest, the Pomera DM250, successor to the DM30. I will not it runs Linux underneath.

A good collection of devices, with some more known than others, where the late 90s brought the capabilities on par with expectations.

But can’t we just do all of this with an inexpensive laptop or a tablet with keybaoard and properly customised software? That would remove the fun out of it for sure.