[ryukoposting]

There's a guy I see at my local coffee shop who uses a word processor. Based on what I found on eBay, I think it might be an AlphaSmart. If so, it would have run him about $75. I thought about getting a similar device, as I also write a lot, but settled on a $90 used laptop instead.

Not seeing the case for spending $175 and only getting half a word processor. If portability was the goal, an external keyboard goes against that. If the goal was better ergonomics, the screen wouldn't be the size and shape of a table tent. So... why?

[_345]

its a toy for techies. i see crap like this on youtube all the time. useless and impractical tech that people gobble up because were all children at heart and we like toys even if we're grown ups now. but it annoys me nonetheless because i always can't help but think "when would i ever use this...?"

[notjulianjaynes]

I once wrote a ~2,000 word draft,on an alpha-smart ($6 at a goodwill) and then couldn't get the transfer to computer function to work correctly, so I had to rewrite the whole thing because I wasn't gonna sit there and manually re-type three lines at a time from the grayscale LCD. The subsequent draft was actually better though, so for this reason I would recommend such a device. It's also a fun novelty thing. Really though, if you keep getting distracted from your writing, maybe consider if it's because you don't actually have anything to say?

[wenc]

Writing things twice is actually a technique for improving quality.

https://grantslatton.com/software-pathfinding