Ten years ago, the Psion Series 5, with EPOC v1 OS (effectively Symbian OS 1.0) was launched, and Psion threatened to become as big as Sony. The Register's Andrew Orlowski has posted a wonderfully detailed in-depth look at Psion to find out why the dream never happened. If you ever wonder why Rafe started EpocHelp, Steve became a writer and programmer, and I started flag waving for a simple programming language, it was because we saw the promise in Psion. here, for the first time, is a look back at the ghosts in the closets, the mistakes, the bad karma, and the fear of the last High Tech British company.
Read on in the full article.
A shame, a real shame. And the irony is that the world was just on the verge of a huge expansion in pocket computing with smartphones, music players and GPS units.
"(and of course, an Epoc Word format version)"
Presumably this can only be read on a Psion? 😊
I think I'm going to cry.... I loved my 5 and 5mx!
>>Presumably this can only be read on a Psion?<<
Well if it wasn't for 2 mistakes done by Nokia, the EPOC Word files could also be read by CWord (Symbian Word) in S80 and S90 machines...
To tell the truth : we are (almost) all waiting for the return of the PSION ! It was much more than a consumption product, much more than the E90's arguments (watch Tom Cruise films, listen to music, surf on ebay...): with a SERIES 5 or a REVO, you were entering informations (real text files, real BBD...), in other words, you were producing.
reading through the article, its clear that psion could have brought out the new revo and 5mx, and would have profited from it - such a shame they didn't! They'd still be here now! All they needed was an extra couple models to weather the storm and they'd be bringing out the equivalent E90 now.
Duncan.
Maybe someone can persuade Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar to form a consortium to buy the needed technologies to revive the Psion machines - bringing them up to date of course, with colour screens, BT/WiFi, faster processors etc. The only application which needs serious updating would be the web browser.
Some good news for y'all. I have just seen the E90 for sale in London2.
Don't know if it was an imported version or what, but it was there. �599.
Too much money to purchase today, but it would be good to know if these are now generally available.
It was Potter's fault for bringing in Levin. Levin had no passion or enthusiasm for the product.
I really enjoyed my time with the Psion boffins - all in their cardigans and corduroy pants. Unfortunately they were overawed by the Hugo Boss and Armani suits of the Nokia and Ericsson guys.
Too bad.
If you must talk about dead languages then remember the C-64 and apple II!
Now how about a cold shower..
Fact is.. SE, NOKIA and any new symbian based phones beware!
MOTOROLA has (adapted to symbian whenever needed and..) been backed by US government concerns ever since the introduction of police band in the dark ages in the states. And built the phone network to the moon. And umm, has anyone checked who built the com system on ISS (space station)? I doubt they�re sony mics!?
Instead of the split in Europe of thought over OS (as for example in the forties with yalta which again swayed towards..) don�t you need to, or could, in the future insure through European progess and political clout choose what color milk you drink (And btw check the carton design!)??
As an American living and working in Europe for the past 20 years and watching EU commercial technology evolve (slowly!) I can�t believe how stagnant progress has been. People here can�t even sell a hoover! So. what hope has an engineer???
Some of us remember basic so.. instead of `gosub�ing this problem let�s get to the end line.
Get your heads out of your psion (which btw is a great achievement in itself, hats-off) and focus!
Gotta go.. shh!