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Psion OrganizerWhen you're living in the golden age of slickly designed smart phones such as the Q, BlackJack and BlackBerry Pearl, it's easy to forget the humble beginnings that personal digital assistants had back in the '80s. Remember Psion? This British company's line of PDAs featured miniscule monochromatic screens and keyboards arranged alphabetically instead of in the QWERTY fashion (keyboard cover is also shown in photo). The units looked less like PDAs and more like something a police officer might clock your blood alcohol level with.
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Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsBozAug 13th 2008 1:24PM
I actually wish my Blackberry used an ABC keyboard instead of QWERTY. The latter was designed to make typing more efficient. You can't really type on a Blackberry...the keys are too small. If it was an ABC layout I could feel my way across the keyboard with one finger in the dark. With Qwerty, I have to stare at the keyboard and hope the backlighting is bright enough for me to tell the difference between an E and an F for example. The screen outshines the keyboard when it is dark and makes key recognition difficult. I usually have to use both hands too.
Irregular ShedAug 18th 2008 11:35AM
Regarding the Psion:
"The units looked less like PDAs and more like something a police officer might clock your blood alcohol level with."
That's actually not that a million miles from reality - from what I recall these were designed more for data gathering than as a PDA. We were using when I was working in the hospital in the late 90s for stock control - they had barcode readers and were as rugged as the brick they were styled upon, meaning they could be used in warehouses and operated by the least technically literate staff you could possibly put on inventory duty (hence the non-QWERTY keypad). When I left the hospital for more interesting employment they were 12 years old and still going strong.
MP649Aug 22nd 2008 9:22PM
looks more like a calculator than a PDA
hsu912174Jun 27th 2009 6:06PM
This actually looks like those TI-83s that high school kids haul around.
lilmissthing0027May 25th 2007 12:19AM
You all need to calm down. Why does everyone think that their negative opinions will really want to be read over and over? It was really fun looking at some of these old gadgets! Some were really ridiculous huh? Spending their days writing these articles is their job. So give it a rest. Maybe no one wants to read a positive response either - but hey just trying to change things up.
PaydayMay 25th 2007 12:59AM
Back in the 80's the closest thing I had to a computer was a calculator and it looked just like that.
Bond, JamesMay 25th 2007 6:24AM
Everything in the 80s looked ugly, even people.