The Last Psion | Alex

Maybe I should do an #introduction? I'm Alex and I have a PDA problem. For a quick summary, take a look at the alt text for these photos and the hashtags below. I also wrote a longer intro here: oldbytes.space/@thelastpsio... #retrocomputing #Psion #RP20240 #Pascal #HaikuOS #PCB #MAME #16bit

Sep 1996: Psion Series 3A 2Mb Palmtop PC ad from Dixons (+Psion Series 3A 1Mb Palmtop PC) «PSION SALE»

Oct 1989: Organiser II ad from Psion (+Dot Matrix Portable Thermal Printer; Finance Pack; Maths Pack; Portfolio Pack; Travel Pack; and Formulator) «DO COMPUTER LITERATE PEOPLE ENJOY AN EXCITING READ AT THIS TIME IN THE MORNING?»

Psion in Kyrgyzstan 🇰🇬

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Playing with #FreePascal in #CompilerExplorer. Lines 22 and 23 produce less machine code than lines 25 and 26, yet end up with the same result - trimming the last character from the last item in a TStringList. #Pascal

Done! You want a tool that takes a 16-bit OMF (.OBJ) file compiled by TopSpeed C and moves the class descriptor data from the DATA segment to the CODE segment? You want it to run on basically everything? Well, this might do the job. codeberg.org/thelastpsion... #ECOBJ #SIBOSDK #Psion #retrodev

NetBSD 11.0 Released With RISC-V Support, Enhanced Linux System Call Compatibility - https://www.phoronix.com/news/NetBSD-11.0

Inevitable Psion 5mx screen ribbon failure, repaired thanks to the Psion.community Discord crew (especially Bs()Dd) and the remarkable fabrication lab of JLCPCB - soldering required a very steady hand!

Shane, step away from ebay. You do not need more Psion computers. Well, maybe you do some day, but not right now. Leave them for other people who will learn to love them as you do, care for them, fix them, change the world with them.

#DuckDuckGo knows where it's at with sunglasses.

This won't get old for me. The TopSpeed C compiler 3.10, running on #HaikuOS via emu2, compiling #EDisAsm, a native #Psion #EPOC16 app. The compiler also has to call a number of tools from the SIBO C SDK.

Got me a new record.

One of my other hobbies is collecting old travel books. By "old", I mean 100+ years. Most are from the "Peeps At Many Lands" range, published between 1904 and 1934. I started it on a whim. Now it feels like an act of rebellion. #BooksSaveLives #Shelfie #Booksky

Pascal *and* a portable computer with Psion ancestry? Perfect!

It's been 9 months since I moved from GitHub to #Codeberg. I'm happy with the move and have absolutely no desire to move back, or anywhere else. My old repos are archived on GitHub. They all have a link to their new homes on Codeberg, but most are well out of date. Is it time to delete them?

To be very clear this is happening because the current government believes AI is the future of UK science, because, like the previous few governments, their opinions are entirely formed by think tanks and lobbyists www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

In addition to being an outstanding writerdeck, the Psion netBook is great for playing classic text adventure games. Here's Infocom's 1983 banger "Infidel"... #retrocomputing #interactivefiction

TFW you find a bug in one of your projects when using to generate files for a different project. In totally unrelated news, I've just fixed a bug in #CTRAN and shall now carry on with #ECOBJ. #SIBOSDK codeberg.org/thelastpsion...

people ask me why i'm making a DOS version of You Have Died (And Been Reincarnated As A Fox Girl) and 1. it's because i can and it's fun for me 2. it's much more likely to continue running properly in a DOS emulator than on modern systems lmao

Welp, it looks like I last looked at #ECOBJ on 2026-01-01. This, of course, leads to a lot of me thinking, "Oh, I wrote that code, did I? Interesting..." I'm going to need a refresher on the IBM OMF format. #SIBOSDK

Very interesting read about the #DVLA, legacy systems, #COBOL and nightly shutdowns. (HT @ret@furry.engineer on Mastodon) dafyddvaughan.uk/blog/2025/wh...

I've been using Mastodon as a rubber duck. Be grateful.

No apologies for sending this out a few times over the next week. Our son is looking for a year in industry/placement as part of his Software Engineering degree in Southampton. He's in line for a First, very capable and good at digging into problems. However roles are rare right now. Can you help?

Good morning! I wish to make it known that, as amazing as #Psion were, there were times when they should have f**king known better, This message is brought to you by Too Much Time In Their SDKs.

The Psion WaveFinder is a wonderful bit of early-2000s oddware which works as a USB DAB radio receiver for 98/2000/XP machines. Here it’s picking up and playing out BBC Radio 1.

The Luddites loved technology. They owned looms at home and would ‘mod’ them to count threads. Their battle was against worker exploitation. The degradation of their rights, safety and wages. They were against a handful of rich businessmen owning the means of production. Sound familiar?

Ok, it's very incomplete but i've decided to upload my CPC+/GX4000 library for SDCC, CeePCee. codeberg.org/Jonn-reenthu... #IndieDev #RetroDev

The Psion MC600 has been emulated in MAME for awhile now. We weren't aware of any software specifically released for it ... until now. We found mention that some DOS apps were released on SSD, ie. Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE III, then promptly found an SSD image of both apps, licensed to Psion!

These yokes were aimed at the industrial market - warehousing, data logging etc. But they're actually pretty capable devices - I'll be exploring some more... #Psion