This is the funniest Steam Deck accessory I’ve ever seen!

Don’t get me wrong. I understand why this keyboard/stand exists. It has a practical function.

But imagine sitting down at Starbucks. The room is full of normal laptops. Clean lines. Thin aluminum. Civilized.

You unzip a case that looks like it contains military hardware. Out comes a handheld gaming console.

Then a keyboard.

Then a clamp.

You assemble it in stages like you’re preparing to launch a small satellite.

Click. Lock. Adjust angle. Tighten mount.

The joysticks loom over your Word document like twin anti-aircraft turrets. The ABXY buttons shimmer with the promise of violence.

You begin typing your gentle coming-of-age novel.

Every paragraph is written beneath a D-pad.

Someone glances over, expecting Elden Ring. Instead they see you carefully crafting a metaphor about autumn leaves.

You nod solemnly and continue Chapter 3.

When the barista calls your name, you detach the entire contraption in reverse order like a NASA rollback procedure.

You pack away the clamp. You holster the console. You slide the keyboard into its sheath.

You leave behind only confusion.

No one knows if you were coding, gaming, or coordinating a drone strike.

You were writing poetry.

@atomicpoet Slides into the seat next to you and opens my Psion 5mx with its award-winning smooth hinge mechanism. Its 48MHz ARM chip is both powerful and power efficient, the whole device can run for 20 hours on just two AA batteries. The keyboard is full-travel and despite its size, it provides the best typing experience for a palmtop computer, bar none. The screen is a stunningly high density 640x240 pixels with 16 shades of grey and an electroluminescent backlight sandwiched along with the touchscreen. I press the side of the device and the stylus cooly springs out from its integrated spring-lock storage. This is a portable writing and calendaring battlestation and it has never been beaten in 25 years.

#psion #writingcommunity

@Kroc @atomicpoet that is lovely. I’d like a laptop like that. No touch pad. Widescreen format equal to the size of the keyboard. Fine with 16 greys LCD if the OS can clock down as well for weeks of battery. … maybe a LORA module too :-)
@Kroc @atomicpoet Psion were ahead of their time. Prefer your 5mx to the MC 400 my father had in 1989. That was still cool though
@Kroc @atomicpoet I had one of these when it was new, saved up for a year to buy it. Incredible in 1997, still pretty amazing now. I’m sad that I got rid of it in the mid-00s.
@Kroc @atomicpoet (mine was a 5, I realise - the 5mx fixed all the annoying bits on it)
@drmikepj The 5 Series does have better contrast though

@Kroc @atomicpoet "An elegant weapon for a more civilized age"

(Sorry, couldn't help it.)

@Kroc @atomicpoet Beautiful keyboard.
@Kroc @GamesMissed @atomicpoet And in the next seat down, I unfold my BOOX Palma, fire up vim in Termux, and start typing furiously away on my Corne-ish Zen.
@SethMilliken @GamesMissed @atomicpoet ❤️ (and yes, I say this as a Linux user now)
@Kroc @atomicpoet There really truly is just something about this class of device that is appealing beyond its actual features. I can't say what it is. What I ultimately really want is, say, a Raspberry Pi or something more capable of running a wider range of software like this, yet... Despite that I still want one of these because holy heck they're neat.
@nazokiyoubinbou Software will always be the sticking point which is why any Android device with a keyboard will always be a terrible writing experience when none of the software is designed with this in mind. The software on the Psion is basic but very well designed and the word-processor and spreadsheet are surprisingly capable; everything was designed specifically for the device unlike WinCE which was a desktop interface shoehorned into a small screen where the taskbar made no sense taking up that much room on a wide-aspect screen. Nowadays the hardware is the easier bit, but it'll be a long time before better software exists because if a device doesn't have a web-browser these days then what good is it for/?

@Kroc I don't know. There's a lot of different software for Android. Heck, if I wanted I could open up Termux and use [preferred CLI editor] in it. There's some pretty good software even when one prefers simple out there and F-Droid likely has plenty of simpler stuff.

I'd say it's just the overall experience more than anything else. However, there's also just a certain "neatness" factor here. The Psion devices were truly unique and mold-breaking in their time. They really did something amazing. But modern tablets have made everything as generic and meaningless as possible. Worse, even added a touch of evil in there. Half the stuff in the official app stores (yes including Apple!) have a bunch of trackers and such.

In other words it's UX, not UI.

@Kroc I would love to see (and use) something like this, but built using current technology.

@jwo There have been *many* attempts and all appear to fall short because they keep targeting vibes rather than engineering. A modern “digital typewriter” like the Zerowriter (https://zerowriter.ink) is infinitely outclassed by a 90s #Alphasmart DANA (https://mateuszurbanowicz.com/2022/06/29/retro-writing-10-alphasmart-dana) in every measure. Like all things, _we are going backwards_. The #PocketMage (https://pocketmage.org) is interesting as a homebrew device but it’s still light years away from even a #Psion 3

#alphasmart #pocketmage #writingcommunity #retrocomputing #psion

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