Prelude: A New Beginning of the Old Legends

I. THE OLD LEGENDS

Like many midlife working adults in large modern cities, I grew up during the advent of the internet (still remember irc, mailing lists, Netscape and Eudora?) and personal computing devices of the 1980s, I have witnessed and lived through many generations of gadgets: from the boxy metal heavy personal desktops, to the minuscule PDAs in the 90s and beyond, to the UMPCs mostly as an expensive passing fad for the niche, then to the low-cost but cheapish Netbooks since mid 2000s, and finally at this point, the golden age of the ubiquitous Smartphones.

I was once a loyal follower of PDAs. My first love was a Palm III. Then I moved on to Handspring Prism, and then a couple of Sony Clie (NR70V, NX73V), the much deprived Abacus Wrist PDA, and finally a Handera 330 (still having it today!). I did use a Pocket PC (iPAQ 2210) for several months but the PPC platform just failed to win my favor on many counts. 

The year of the Millenium marked not only the would-be-but-never-was Apocalypse, but also the birth of truly converging devices. Traditional PDAs and handhelds were quickly exiled to legacies and forgotten, thanks to the emergence of Web 2.0 as a new infrastructure of daily communications, which went hand in hand strongly with the rise of iOS and Android smartphones as the ideal all-in-one mobile solutions.

A sidenote: The Nokia N900, a truly usable Linux phone (I'm looking at you, PinePhone), was my initimate companion at one point. But two years later, I just found no words to say "No!" to my mobile service provider's FREE offer. So I switched to the gift LG Optimus G (Android 4.1) and never looked back since then.

Smartphones = a dream come true!?

But it is still too early for my dream to realize. I have always been feeling a sense of uneasiness and insecurity, worrying about yielding too much privacy automatically, unwillingly, and permanently to the world wide web especially the big manupulative moneymakers (conspiracies!). Although I develop no love for social media in general and more so MMO gaming, I still find myself spending a huge chunk of time every day feeding on online content, YouTube clips, podcasts, patreon channels, news feeds ... I even manage part of my day job online using my Android phone (now LG Q6+, still Android OS 8). 

So perhaps it's time to call for a moment's respite and take stock of my gadget experience.

II. A NEW BEGINNING...

Not sure whether it's the ridiculous gadget world or the unreasonable me, I have never been truly  satisfied with any of the portable computing devices I have used. I don't swap devices purely for fashion. I know well that I have always been searching for my "unicorn" machine. 

During midlife crisis, one is vulnerable to all sorts of existential questions. And his gadgets are a highly likely target too. 

Okay, let's not tallk about unicorns. They don't exist, okay?  But, how about dark horses? 

A few months ago I had a pocket moment of truth.

A good friend of mine was once an avid collector of gadgets, especially those small computing devices. I counted myself very fortunate to be able to take over (part of) his huge collections. There were so many objects in the treasure chest which I never had a chance to see, let alone use, before. Among them the biggest surprise probably was the couple of handheld computing devices. What goes around comes around... 

The fun thing is playing with these vintage small wonders makes me question more seriously about the nature of handheld computers. What does an ideal (but not necessaily perfect) handheld computer need? 

(1) Instant on: Zero wait time. Even a few seconds may kill an inspiration or a sudden recollection.

(2) Pocketability: Not necessarily shirt or trouser pockets. Being able to fit into jacket or small carrying bag/case is good.

(3) Build quality: The industrial standard forced obsolescence of today's gadgets render most units broken or unusable every couple of years. Many of the Handheld PCs, however, stand the real test of time. For instance, my Jornara 720 remains rock solid sturdy after two full decades. No cracks. No jokes. 

(4) Display: Without doubt, large displays and ultra high resolutions are excellent for entertainment purposes (especially videos and games). But for continuous actual typing excessive screen estate can do more harm than good to the writer's eyes and focus.

(5) Decent battery life: 8-10 hours is good enough. Working more than that is not healthy to humans. lol An immediate question upon acquiring a HPC is the battery is almost certainly long dead on arrival (DOA). So the priority todo here is to revive the battery packs by replacing the dead cells within with new ones. The good news is new cells generally have much higher capacity (mAh). A revived standard battery can rival the bulky extended packs. (I am going to talk more about this when discussing each specific device.)

(6) Tweakability: Besides battery modding, over the years many of the Handheld PCs still have a small but dedicated following. Often these communities bear rich fruits of system tweakings or even replacements.  The open source world is the way to go. Linux is great in economic, social, and political sense.

(7) Form factor: Clamshell is my true desire. It makes the device pocketable, flexible, secure ... and typable, which brings us to the last one ...

(8) Keyboard:

As noted before, I have never developed a soft spot for Pocket PC and the platform itself. I secretly decided that the traditional PDA form factor is simply not right for the system. Let's face it. Graffiti, stylus, miniature onscreen keyboard, and physical "thumbboards" are all plainly unsuitable for prolonged text input. Hey, PDAs are meant for brief use, aren't they? Very true. That's why they are never my ideal machines. Here I stand: THEY NEED A REAL KEYBOARD! 

The foldable keyboard (wired or wireless, no matter) looks both geeky and funny at the same time (I did try, but apparently I failed). However mobile the twins are, they are destined to meet the intrinsic requirement for a stable and relatively spacious working surface for them to roll out and run. 

Wait, can't you see how the young kids today feverishly thumbing away their likes and thoughts? Sorry, I am born with big hands with large finger tips. I'm afraid I will never join their league. Or call me old school. I always find typing on a physical keyboard far more satifying and inspiring than thumbing on a piece of glass. I love the intimate talks between my ten finger tips and my brain. I crave the tactile feedback informing me of how my ideas are coming into shape. 

What I don't NEED

• Being always connected and watched and data-mined. Using my mobile phone and an (mostly often) offline handheld computer seems to be a healthy division at this age.
• Cutting edge computing power is more often than not for hypes and vanity. What's more than I would use for simple yet crucial tasks should be out of the way.

An interlude

After inheriting the gadget lot, I added to my fetish by winning a number of auctions on the Japanese Yahoo! bidding site. I have a robust impression that the Japanese are not just renowned of their seriousness in designing and building things, but also keeping them. Most of the time I am very surprised by the clean and pleasant condition of the stuff being in their custody no matter how many years have gone by.

III. MY FOUR DARK HORSEMEN

Here are my four major contestants at the moment:

• HP Jornada 720 (2000)
• Alphasmart Dana (2002)
• Sigmarion III (2004)
• Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1 (2009)

Technical specifications at a glance

Why I count them in (in short): fine physical touch typing keyboard, small footprint, instant-on, respectable battery life (see my further notes), excellent design and ruggedness (despite their age), tweakability, and curiously, no 24/7 (forced) connectivity.

Not my priority: uber builtin connectivity (all happily lacking one way or another), and high raw power (CPU speed, amount of RAM, internal storage). 

My scoring system

I have given scores to these four machines in five categories: Portability, Battery, Screen, Applications, Keyboard.

These scores are rather unconventional and are based on the following personal criteria.

(1) Portability: How easy and convenient it is to carry it around in pockets or in small bags/cases.

(2) Battery: Not original capacity ratings. Rather, this has to do with after replacing the battery cells. All these devices were made more than 10 years ago (J720 was 20!) and so the original battery packs are almost certainly dead. Fortunately it is not that difficult to replace the cells (more on this in my later posts) and the new capacities can become far superior than the factory values.

(3) Screen: How comfortable it is to the eyes of those who type regularly and frequently on the devices.

(4) Applications (Tweakability): Again this does not only concern the stock operating systems (all have been depreciated), but are more about the possibilities of installing upgraded or alternate systems, especially Unix or Linux ports.

(5) Keyboard: How groovy for one to touch type on the builtin keyboard.

All four machines are of excellent and durable build quality.
All are instant-on.
All except for Dana are in clamshell form.

And the results are ...

Full score = 25

Jornada 720: 23

Alphasmart Dana: 21

Sigmarion III: 20

Netwalker PC-Z1: 18

In a nutshell, my biggest love still goes to the Jornada 720 (with a 728 board, i.e. Japanese -> English ROM, plus 32MB->64MB, mainly good for running Debian/Deuvan, my upcoming project).

IV. AFTERWORD

For each of these four exquisite devices, I am going to start its own mini series, covering topics such as: 1) Getting started (basic information, where to get one today); 2) Initial tweaking, modding, fixups (system updates, UI finetuning, battery rebuidling); 3) Leveling up the experience (cool apps, alternative OSs)

I am by no means an expert in any of these areas. The whole purpose of this blog is to have my own personal journals recording my experience, both for sharing with other handheld enthusiasts and for my own reference (lest in the future I forget what I was doing once upon a time).

And now, the real adventure begins ...