farber@pcpond.cis.upenn.edu. (David J. Farber) (04/13/90)
Swansonc asked about the PSION 200/400/600. I have had a PSION 400 now for several weeks, I purchased it at Q-tronics in Tottencourt Road London (ask for Peter). I love it. It is 4.5 pounds (weight) runs off of 8 AA batteries with a claimed 60 hour life time , and a 800x400 screen that is very readable, 256k internal memory and PSIONs eprom and ram Solid State Disks ( four of them). The machine has a c mos 808x processor at 7.8 mh and an internal eprom system of 256 k (in situ rewritable) The 400 has a touch pad "mouse" built in and a multi-tasking OS with a visual interface. Its easy to use, flexible and friendly (not x windows). OPL their programming language is built in. I gather other development software (such as C will be along soon) along with a wordprocessor and spreadsheet (there is a neat calendar text processor etc built in). The unit had several plug in module slots, it comes with one for a standard parrallel printer and serial cable. They will offer a fax, a intergrated voice compression module and a 2400 MNP modem (some by summer). Clearly I love it. No chargers, no dos, light and UK made. The US PSION organization has been very responsive and co-operative. I gather they will be marketing soon in the US and will tell folks when (me that is). The 600 is a pc compatable with 2 meg of ram, dos, function keys rather than the mouse pad and 30 hour battery life. The screen is the same but is cga compatable. They claim in the literature that the fax and voice modules will not be offered for the 600 (not sure why). If you want a light laptop I strongly recommend the PSION and if you are not dos pc stuck, the 400 offeres a fun interface . else the 600. Times of introcution to the US are still unknown to me. Nice to see innovation like this. I am happy to help out anyone with more info. Dave ps the UK list price at heathrow is 850 #. Q-tronics was much better and Peter knew his systems. David Farber; Prof. of CIS and EE, U of Penn, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6389 Tele: 215-898-9508(off); 215-274-8292 (home); FAX: 215-274-8293; Cellular: 302-740- 1198 "The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment." -- R. P. Feynman