Acorn PocketBook II

[68kAlex]

It's been a while since I made any new 'conquests' – and in fact I have downsized my collection somewhat by getting rid of the iMac G3 and the Powerbook 1400c – but I picked up a mint-condition Acorn PocketBook II this week for the princely sum of £10 on Ebay.

 

This is a re-badged Psion Series 3a, produced in 1994. I don't think Psion were very big in the USA, but they were popular in Britain until the company abruptly withdrew from the consumer handheld market at about the turn of the century. I never really got on board with the Psion Series 5 / 5MX, but our primary school in the mid 1990s had a fleet of Acorn PocketBooks which synced with our Archimedes desktop machines. There was also a separate room full of Macintosh Classics but I digress (apparently a wealthy benefactor had kitted out our school with IT kit).

 

In terms of personal use, I had a Siena new in 1996 and in the early 2000s I pretty much ran my life from a Series 3c, long after the platform had become obsolete. In short these little machines have been part of my life for a long time and I have a lot of affection for the Series 3 operating system.

 

I've also managed to find the Psion 3-Link and the computer is now happily exchanging files with my Macintosh Classic. I intend to use it as a secure offline password-management system, and will probably also use it for typing up notes etc.

 

[Elfen]

A lovely find! I remember Psion in the states, but Palm Pilot and Casio mini '386 hand helds were beating the crap out of it in their famous price wars. I got an old Casio '386 but its suffering a slow death - the plastic casing is turning into sticky mush and I do not know how to fix that. But it does boot up into DOS and has Wordperfect on it! LOL!!! Just have to figure out a few things for it (like a serial cable and uploading laplink to it, then it can talk to PCs and Macs).