The “personal organizer” we had before the Newton

Whoah. I just had a flashback to a little Sharp personal organizer from roughly the same era. I had completely forgotten it even existed until this moment, but I loved it. It died in a car accident I was in (it was in my pocket, like a phone would be today, and I guess got bent/crushed, though it looked fine, it wouldn't power on after the accident). I just googled, and I'm pretty sure it was a Sharp ZQ model of some sort.

That was a strange time in computing, but now that I think of it, I think I may have been vastly better organized in my life back then, with that device, than I am now. I had two jobs and was going to school and made time for playing in bands and trying to flirt with girls. Maybe I should get another one...

Oh come on. Nobody used the crap BOSS organizer, you either had a Sharp Wizard (nee Zaurus) organizer or Psion 20. Sheesh. :-)

Its funny because penetration in the organizer market was so feeble in the early days that the only people who owned them were usually rabid fans who immediately lashed out at opponents at every opportunity. The Palm Pilot was the first that got "serious" traction and the world changed. But until then the Zaurus Wizard line from Sharp was the clear 'king' of the hill.

The Tandy 100 was the one that was really popular-- especially with reporters who would type out stories during press releases.

http://oldcomputers.net/trs100.html

Remember the Franklin Rex? It was an organizer in a PCMCIA slot?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REX_5000

My son still uses a Psion Organizer daily (1984). As it was never Y2K compliant, he just offsets it by a couple of years to get the day/month day name to match.

Until about six months ago my Tungsten T3 was still in regular use. Behind the curve, us? Nah.

Hum ? No mention of the PSION series?

Takes me back to my Casio Databank watch... now that was a serious piece of geek equipment. :)