Psion 5mx Emulator | Hacker News Reader

Psion 5mx Emulator

wuffs.org

216 pointshggh88 comments

The Psion series 5mx provided an impressive amount of portable computing power and ran on two AA batteries plus a coin-shaped memory backup battery.

I used mine to take notes in university classes because I couldn't afford a laptop and it worked great. The keyboard was a bit small, but big enough for touch typing. The built-in office programs made it a productivity beast and the compact flash slot meant I had a whopping 16 MB of storage which held several hundreds of documents and files.

After owning such a useful and charming little machine was sad to see Psion leave the hardware business and turn EPOC into Symbian.

>I used mine to take notes in university classes because I couldn't afford a laptop and it worked great.

How much did a regular laptop cost back them vs that Psion?

The 5MX launched in 1999 at £480. I bought a medium-spec Dell Inspiron in the same year for around £800 if I remember correctly.

Prices in the US were similar.

I remember the Psion series 5mx price was about half the cost of a laptop. The sales clerk in the electronics store tried to convince me to buy a Palm device instead, but I had seen a Psion series 5mx while in Europe and knew what I wanted.

Probably lots, my first Palm was a TX in 2006, and I remember it was ~£300. I used it with a IBM T60 which was was I recall £1200+

I had an IBM R30 before that in ~2000 and recall it being ~£1500 as well.

Laptops weren't cheap!

I too had one in college, but I mostly used it to play Sim City. I did have a laptop, but it was clunky and had terrible battery life, so I was much happier with the Psion.

I had "just" a Psion 5, but I still think the keyboard was better than many of todays small notebooks. I had even Doom on it (to slow, buts still). I used mostly the spreadsheet app for all kind of things. The biggest miss was difficult to get access to a network for email or so.

I remember using the IR port on the 5mx (I think the 5 had this but I'm not 100% sure) to talk to my phone at the time and use it as a modem while on the move. It was hardly convenient, but it worked. Not fast or cheap either, IIRC limited to 19k200 and paying by the minute at hideous mobile rates.

Man I miss that keyboard.

I had one in highschool, and a 3a before that in high school - at the time no one else (at least in my school) used a laptop/equiv; I managed to be allowed as a dispensation due to dyslexia and illegible handwriting. The keyboard on the 5 was a vast improvement over the 3a, as well as the OS. I did quite a lot of programming directly on it - I remember OPL being one (only?) of the languages built in - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Programming_Language

My mother came to visit me recently, bringing my 5 back - unfortunately it looks like I left the batteries in all those years back and they leaked, so it's likely dead.

You should be able to save it with a little work, lots of articles about battery death in devices

Thanks - good point - though I've not had time to look yet!

Write-up about the project is here: https://wuffs.org/blog/building-a-psion-emulator

This is amazing, what a great project. Psion has a special place in my heart!

My grandfather gifted 12-year-old me his 3c, when he upgraded to a BlackBerry.

I used OPL [1] on that Psion to write my first ever line of code.

Here I am now, a professional software engineer, 20 years later. Who’d have thought it :)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Programming_Language

There really should be a FOSS re-implementation of OPL.

Better still, one that could run on modern phones.

For modern phones, I guess Python is a better option, e.g. Pydroid.

You can also install Termux and use just about anything that runs on Linux.

In rooted phones, or sideloaded since it no longer satisfies Play Store security rules, given that many Linux syscalls aren't officially supported on Android.

you don't need root to download packages from a git repo.

Note the or on my comment.

Okay, but you did bring up root; why?

And you stop reading after the comma, why?

I clearly didn't, since I'm arguing with you about everything after the comma in another thread. Why are you avoiding the question? Did you make a mistake bringing up root and just don't want to say so?

Termux doesn't need root. Just get FDroid.

Another one with problems reading the full length of my comment.

That comma really breaks English parsing in certain individuals.

Installing F-Droid is not rocket science.

Apparently English reading comprehension skills are.

You don't need to side-load termux; it comes from an app store. And I can't think of any case where you would need root, so I'm curious why you even mentioned that.

Not from PlayStore, but apparently everyone has English reading comprehension problems and wants to write a comment anyway.

https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...

You seem to have ignored half my comment; per your standards this means I am entitled to insult you and then ignore your claims. (Which I'm going to try and avoid because it's impolite, but I wanted to take a moment to both call out hypocrisy and that you seem to be ignoring every single question about what rooting has to do with anything.)

Anyways, yes, I can read, have spent a good deal of time on that exact page, am intimately familiar with sideloading (and rooting, if that were in scope), understand what an app store is, and maintain that Termux is best installed from an app store (F-Droid) rather than being sideloaded (though grabbing APKs straight from GitHub and sideloading them isn't that bad as a second option). I would suggest that if everyone appears to misunderstand you, then the most likely options are that 1. they understand you just fine, or 2. you need to communicate better. FWIW I think it's the former.

Feel insulted as much as you like, by suggesting to use FDroid, you clearly ignored the part of my comment where I mention the situtation regarding Play Store, NOT ANY OTHER KIND OF STORE, capice?!?

And you did it yet again, doubling down on the rooting part, missing the or.

So whatever dude.

Personally I find Python vastly overrated and nowhere near as easy as its proponents claim.

I think Python looks like an easy, simple, clear language if you grew up with Unix and C derivatives. I didn't. I am older than that, and when I was a teenager, Unix was a vastly expensive OS for high-end workstations. I never saw a physical Unix machine until I was about 17 and didn't get to try one until I was 20. (An IBM RT-PC running AIX 1.)

I come from an era of simpler, clearer OSes and languages, more user-focused and less aimed at developers. I preferred BASIC, Fortran and Pascal to the curly-braces family of languages.

I only wrote very simple programs in OPL in the early 1990s, but I found it much easier and more productive than Python, then or now.

I had an almost identical start to programming.

I didn’t have any OPL manual but there were a few short examples in the regular user guide somewhere. I can’t count how many times I read those few pages trying to glean more secrets about OPL!

This was also MY start to programming. I won a Psion 3c when I was 12 or 13 and built shareware apps for it. I did my work experience at Psion's HQ in West London when I was 15, became a software engineer, director of engineering, startup founder, exited that startup, blah blah, venture capital investor today. All from programming on my Psion (and Acorn computers).

Have vivid memory of my dad unboxing his 5mx with me and we were both in awe of the tech, don't get that very often anymore, at least from the hardware.

I used to go to cafes and McDonald's to work on my Psion 3mx around 1992-94. Almost always got verbal abuse for doing it :-) "Fecking show off..." :-)

For context, that's around the time I entered University. I bought an HP48S calculator ($200 canadian), which I spent so much time on, it used 3 AAA batteries which would last for months. There was a whole hacking community around it, someone even ported pacman to it. It helped me out during exams, because I was able to write programs for it that would for example calculate eigenvalues of matrices. I remember when I was at the place that I bought the HP48, the guy behind the counter was showing off his Apple Newton. Who would have thought what would materialize nearly 20 years later (IPhone). About 10 years later I remember playing with the Compaq Ipaq, that too failed to gain mass adoption. It took a while to find the right formula that would allow mass adoption.

I had a Newton. It had good ideas, but the hardware was not there. Also the price was way too high for what it offered.

I still have my Newton and my HP-48SX. Yeah, the Newton was clearly ahead of its time. Maybe the main thing that "made" the iPhone was connectivity (and ofcourse having the "Internet" to connect to) - neither were really there for the Newton (or other PDAs for that matter). It's those intersections in technology Internet/Celluar network/Hardware/Software where things take off. An expensive cool PDA without the rest of it is just that. The iPhone was a little bit cheaper (again driven by hardware technologies maturing).

Dreamed of owning one when I was a kid, but couldn't afford it. Now I can finally try the software experience. And wow, it is delightful and simple!

The physical keyboard is king! For a long time I was looking for a modern alternative.

The 'GPD P2 Max' comes close and for me hits the sweet spot of offering a small size while not deviating too much from a comfortable typing experience, but it has a fan and I wish the battery lasted longer.

Did you consider the Planet Computers' Gemini? Martin Riddiford who designed the keyboards for the Psion 3 and 5 series did the magic again.

https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/gemini-pda

Got mine in 2017 from their Indiegogo launch and as a previous 5mx user in the 90s how could I not?

Sadly they never updated the OS so it's not really much use now. The inability to make some android apps flip to landscape was also a little frustrating.

I have a Gemini too! I still use it sometimes, I just open Termux and use it as a highly portable scratch pad for working on small coding projects.

I wish that the handheld form factor had more options, but it seems that market is just too niche and otherwise dominated by tablets and phones.

The specs say it will boot into Debian. Is that still working?

Great project. It's interesting how good the UI is. And how it differs from the current mobile trends.

I loved this device and usability was top notch!

BTW, most of this interface was possible because of the external keyboard and even though it used the traditional UI elements like top text menu items with drop downs and modal dialogues (basically a windowing desktop system). The interface was very well optimized for keyboard shortcuts and navigation.

With our current high resolution displays we use our fat round fingers as pointers and information density suffers. That seems to be the reason they're not used. (Windows mobile used stylus as pointer to solve this problem and keep the common windowing desktop paradigm).

You don't necessarily need a full keyboard, even a handful of physical buttons and controls can help a lot as found in the newer form factor of 'gaming-focused' handhelds. It would be interesting to try and develop a productivity-focused UX for that sort of portable hardware.

I was confused about how one can write an emulator in the wuffs language. :-D

https://github.com/google/wuffs/blob/main/doc/note/hermetici...

Wow. I have the Psion Series 3 DOS emulator files someplace in hopes I'll be able to run them on some kind of portable MCU some day... This takes me back, and I wish we hadn't lost this kind of device (and yes, I know about the Planet devices, and their Android-based hardware).

I miss skeuomorphic calendar designs based on the Filofax

It wasn't called Symbian yet, so I was surprised to find a reference to .sis installation packages in settings.

I miss Psion a lot. Has there been a UK computer hardware company since as innovative?

IIRC, they did some odd things in their final years. I remember really wanting a Psion 7/Psion netbook while living in the UK; there was some bizarre situation they would only sell them to B2B customers despite plenty of fans wanting one. I may be recalling facts a little off.

My first ever program was written on the built in IDE on a Psion 3 (funny to think of portable computers that ship with the ability to write apps out of the box in todays cellphone market...)

> Has there been a UK computer hardware company since as innovative?

Raspberry Pi?

Maybe. Kinda a single idea that exploded there though (cheap SBCs). Psion had innovations across the board; they wrote their own OS (which later became Symbian on hundreds of millions of cellphones), wrote their own amazing little language for applications (OPL), the exceptional physical engineering of the battery hinges and sliding keyboards, incredible battery life on 2 AAs, full range of expansion cards/modems etc. The build quality on Psion 3/5 was incredible too, they remain some of the most nicely assembled consumer electronics I've seen.

These devices even had pre-emptive multi-tasking support in their EPOC OS before the Mac did - the Mac didn't get this till OS X shipped.

I like Raspberry Pi products, but for me, it's not close. Psion did all of the above by 1998... I don't think the UK has had an engineering leader in this space like it since.

The Psion Revo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Revo) had the same software and OS, and a way better display. It was also smaller and lighter. But, sadly, neither the storage nor the battery were removable, so unless you had a way to transfer data from the device (via IR link), it was only a matter of time before all your work was in danger of being lost.

Went down a rabbithole, found this prototype with bluetooth https://web.archive.org/web/20060409104320/http://cgi.ebay.c...

I had used Palm Tungsten T before Revo, so I was quite used to the idea of backing the thing up daily over serial cable. And there was some linux package that among other things exposed the Revo's filesystem as an NFS server (it was slightly before FUSE), which was kind of a neat way of transfering files back and forth.

Neat!

As somebody always having used Palm devices, has anybody here used both and can compare their relative advantages?

I remember being amazed by the tons of shareware/freeware available for Palm OS, but the OS itself definitely peaked at around version 4 (or maybe the early Palm OS 5/ARM devices).

In comparison, Symbian often felt clunky, but also much more modern in that it was built for persistent flash storage and multimedia, which always felt like an afterthought on Palm OS.

> As somebody always having used Palm devices, has anybody here used both and can compare their relative advantages?

Psion devices have a physical keyboard. It sounds trivial but this was a huge advantage. Psion's software quality was very, very high. The "Agenda" organizer from the Psion 3 and 3a is still regarded today as one of the best calendar programs ever designed.

(Their hardware quality, while still good, was sometimes not quite as good. The hinge on the Psion 3 range is well known for breaking, and damaging the display ribbon cable which runs through it.)

I had a Psion 3a - it fit in my back pocket and was strong enough it didn't break when I sat on it. I carried it everywhere and used it as my main device for taking notes in meetings - the combination of form factor and a usable keyboard was great.

Then I lost it and got a Psion 5 as a replacement. Despite the keyboard and software being way better, it was just that little bit larger and heavier so that I didn't carry it everywhere. It lived in my bag, not my pocket, so in the end I used it less.

So I switched to a Palm V, which was a wonderful light form factor and looked fabulous, but I found I didn't really use it at all, except as an address book. The lack of a physical keyboard made it basically useless for my main purpose.

In the end, I ended up with an ultra-lightweight Sony Vaio PCG-505 laptop, ran FreeBSD on it, added a Ricochet radio modem, and never looked back. Even 27 years later, I still think the PCG-505 form factor looks good, and at 1.3kg it weighed the same as today's lightest Macbook Air.

Everytime I see these wonderful old Psions I just wish someone would make something similar to the Pinephone Keyboard attachment but for Iphones (or Samsungs, Pixels, etc). Or, to stay more faithful to the original, the Boox Palma!

https://pine64.org/documentation/Phone_Accessories/Keyboard/

Recently discovered the Pomera DM250. Closest thing I've seen in form factor to a Psion in an off-the-shelf gadget. Unfortunately, it's just for writing. Has no other apps.

Some of the recent Chinese brand 8 inch and 7 inch laptops also look like a potential contender. Just worried about reliability with them.

Spent a summer traveling working on my remote university job in the 90s on one of these.

Basically, you invented "remote" :)

I was an early adopter of a lot of things, but failed to capitalize on it. Probably from “inventing” internet addiction too.

I got huge amount of mileage out of Psion Revo. It was more limited than 5mx, but exactly the right form factor to write anywhere. And well, having usable spreadsheet, OPL and EMX Unix-like environment was also a large plus. And well, I got it almost new-in-a-box in 2005 for something like 50EUR. Sadly the battery died and I managed to break the hinge while replacing the battery.

I remember being really impressed by a tour guide I worked with in the early 2000s who ran his business from a Nokia Communicator that ran more or less the same software but with a cell modem included for e-mail. Very slick.

I had a 3, I still have a 5mx.

What I like the most is that it uses regular batteries. I can put new batteries in and play Infocom adventures if I wish, use the inbuilt programs.

Unlike my early gen iPod Touch which does ... almost nothing now

I'm surprised I've never heard of this product before, it looks like something I would have loved to have played with as a kid.

I did have the opportunity to play with the Casio Cassiopeia with Windows CE a few years ago, and I thought it was really impressive for something released in 1997. Being able to have an adequate version of Word and Excel on the go in something that basically fit in your pocket just seemed really impressive to me in the 90s.

Now I kind of want to play with the Psion 5mx.

The OS became the basis of Symbian.

Which is now FOSS and badly needs to be revived:

https://github.com/SymbianSource

I had no idea that this happened. I would love there to be a spiritual successor the awesome N900.

I guess you could argue that that's kind of what Android is, and that would be fair (you can do a lot of Linuxey stuff with Termux and the like), but I dunno, I think I'd still like something that feels a bit more like "a computer"

Did anyone ever manage to build these sources? The only information about them I could find is lots of news from 2010 that "Symbian is now open source, yay".

I've talked to some people about it. Various members of the final teams to work on it are out there and occasionally comment.

I think it needs MS VC++, 32-bit, running on Win XP and nothing later, IIRC. But saying that, that should not be hard to obtain these days. The XP activation algorithm has been cracked; it's easy to build a working XP Pro VM now.

I suspect, but do not know, that there's a fair amount of legacy stuff in Symbian that could be junked now. Nobody is really going to care about backwards compatibility and compatibility with 20-year-old phone apps.

It had, what, 4-5 different UI layers available, I think?

* S60 for portrait touchscreen phones with a few physical buttons and a numeric keypad.

* S80 for landscape phones with QWERTY.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_80_(software_platform)

* S90 for toushcreen-only phones, derived from Psion EIKON.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_90_(software_platform)

* UIQ for portrait touchscreen-only phones.

* MOAP for Japanese phones

Junk all but one, or even them all if necessary, and find something that can bridge it to some kind of modern FOSS toolkit.

Get it building for Raspberry Pi with GCC or LLVM, while 32-bit Arm is still cheap.

This same emulator was also given to the MAME project, and is included in versions of MAME 218 and later, should you wish to run this locally. It works great.

Really pleased to have a play with this--I've so often read comments that the agenda, the calendar, on this thing was better than almost anything since, it was interesting to go and have a look. I can see the point, the year view is really good in a way that my current calendar (fantastical) doesn't quite match.

The keyboard was very good too. You could type on it pretty well. The hardware team did excellent job on hardware part.

My dad had one, I really loved the form factor, with that keyboard that would somewhat slide out when you opened it. Nice keyboard as well, looked less like a toy than competition

Best keyboard in any pocket device of any form, ever. And I have tried pretty much everything, from both sides of the Atlantic and other continents too. This is not hyperbole, but a simple statement of fact.

It’s remarkable how good the apps look even by today’s standards.

Psion 5mx when ~Civvie~ [LGR]?

Seriously though this looks fun. I had a Palm Pilot for a while and then a Treo, and the physical keyboard was such a delight.

Not LGR, but The Retro Shack made a pretty great indepth video about it (and Psion in general):

The PSION Series 5 and 5mx - Let's take a look at how PSION arrived at these little marvels! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IAe2hA760

Mmm I wish I could find a Psion 5mx or modern clone for a reasonable price. What a cool piece of hardware, especially the keyboard.

I'd love to have a minimal spreadsheet app like that for Android. Any recommendations?

Very cool, it was a shame one couldn’t full screen on an iPhone

I can't type a question mark into the word processor.

I adored my Psions. I used a Sienna for years and a 5mx for much longer than is probably reasonable. I used an original psion netbook (not an upgrade series 7) until a lightning storm fried it :( probably still be using that thing. I miss the UI/UX.

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