[triggercut]

This brings back happy memories. I was lucky enough to have the precursor, an Acorn Pocket Book, as part of my school curriculum. I lost it a few years ago in a move but I can still remember the the distinctive "device" smell (probably the case material). I yearned for the additional memory of the Psion 2. I would write lengthy stories that would fill up the memory. No off-device storage. I'd have to delete entries of birds i'd spotted and researched from cards app, tough decisions needed to be made.

Long before pokemon swept the west, our teacher would take us bird watching. We'd create entries in the cards app for each one we spotted, then research the birds in the library to fill out the entry. Then, as a class we'd trade (share) our research with each other.

[garethsprice]

The Acorn was a rebadged Psion 3 rather than a precursor. I remember as I lusted after the Psions on display in Boots as a (dorky) child, and was ecstatic when our school piloted the Acorns.

(Psion and Acorn, two more examples of how the UK is capable of developing world-leading tech but not at successfully marketing it...)

[triggercut]

Wow! I stand corrected. I was led to believe that Acorn went bust and sold to Psion. I thought it went Acorn Pocket Book 1, Acorn Pocket Book II, Psion 3.

Live and learn. Thanks! :-)

[lproven]

Good heavens no.

Psion did the software bundled with the Sinclair 16K/48K ZX Spectrum that was bundled at launch. It also wrote the bundled apps for the Sinclair QL.

Then it did its own line of pocket computers: the Organizer, the unsuccessful MC solid-state laptops, which it then miniaturised into the very successful Series 3, 3A, 3C and 3MX.

Acorn licensed these and sold them with changed software in the ROM, with an schools/educational focus instead of PDA functions.

Psion followed on with the Psion 5, using Acorn's ARM processors and a whole new OS, EPOC32.

That evolved into Symbian and powered the 1st mass-market smartphones. It's now FOSS.

Acorn made it big because it designed the first mass-market RISC chip, the ARM.

Acorn spin-off Arm is alive and well and the Arm chips are the most widely-used CPUs in the world, with about 10x-100x as many sold every year as all x86 put together.

Psion, sadly, is no more.

[isr]

Can confirm, as my first Psion was the Paion II, a calculator formfactor device with full keyboard and OPL programming language.

My later Psion 5 ended up spending most of its time running a zx spectrum emulator - go figure :-)

[bwestergard]

Thank you for sharing this lovely memory.

I've recently gotten into birding as an adult, and have heard that in some parts of the world basic bird identification is part of the curriculum (e.g. the Netherlands). If you don't mind me asking, what country/region did you go to school in? Was this the initiative of one teacher, or something more standardized?

[triggercut]

The UK. Not standardized, just a lucky combination of a fancy school trying to justify fees and good teachers who made the most of the situation for their students.

[lproven]

> an Acorn Pocket Book

A rebadged Psion Series 3.

https://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/Pocket...

256 kB RAM.

Psion 3:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_3#Psion_Series_3

Important note: the pic at the top of the Wikipedia article shows the later, improved 3A with a much bigger screen.

> the additional memory of the Psion 2

I do not understand this. The APB was a Psion (Series) 3. The Psion 2 (Organizer II) was an older, smaller device.

The S3 and APB take memory cards: 2 slots onboard, for Psion SSDs (NOT the modern usage of the term "SSD". See:

https://pulster.de/Psion-Solid-State-Disk-SSD-memory-cards

The Psion 3A had more memory. The 3C more still, and the 3MX more still.

When you say "Psion 2" do you mean Acorn Pocket Book 2?

http://superdecade.blogspot.com/2017/12/acorn-pocket-book-ii...

That was a rebadged 3A, so with from 256kB to 1MB RAM as stock.

Psion did a 2MB model, but Acorn didn't.

As an owner of a 3 and 3A, the 3A was the usable version. The 3's screen was too small, and its storage meagre (but expandable, and I did.)

The 3A was 2x the speed, a much bigger screen with better contrast (but no backlight) and versions with up to 2MB were available, which for this class of machine was a vast amount of storage you'd never fill. Thing 2TB for comparison now, plus 2 drive bays for more if you need it. A laptop with 6TB? That is plenty for almost anyone.