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A Cheap and Portable Word Processor?
An anonymous reader asks: "Last evening I was waiting for a bus and realized that it would be very nice to have a little portable word processor; not a fancy PDA, but something with a bare minimum of processing power, small screen, and a cheap mini-keyboard, so that it could fit in a jacket pocket. It doesn't seem like an infeasable product - consider the price that all-in-one 8-bit game machines like the C64 DTV go for, add that to the price that the cheap organizers go for, and you get a retail value under $50. The only major difference would be in the software, and with some attention given to expansibility it might even be a decent device for homebrews. Does Slashdot have any thoughts on what might fill these gap, or is there really no product that tries to be small, cheap and low-powered like what I'm looking for?"
"When I got home, I did a search for any such devices, and came up with two choices: bulky 1980s machines with outdated connectivity options, found on eBay for pennies - some of these are actually programmable too, interestingly enough; and overpriced 'educational' machines which are almost equivalent to the 80s machines (over $200 or even $300). Electronic organizers are going for under $20, but they are woefully limited machines. The only other cheap option is to get a used PDA."
I'm a big fan of the Danger SideKick. It has the best form factor for text of all the typable phone/pdas. You can get one for a song if you sign up with the right provider. Me I signed up for a year and I paid -$35 (via rebates) for the unit.
Plus, I love posting first.
P.S. infeasable?
You know, that wooden thing with carbon in the middle? Carry a piece of paper in your wallet, and you're good to go. It's small, portable, and it doesn't need batteries! Heck, you could even use a pen if you're willing to talk on the wild side!
I'm constantly amazed at this gadget obsession people have.....
Yep, an MP2000/2100 with a keyboard is very usable day-to-day. Heck, even the HWR is good enough for me to have taken notes in most of my humanities electives. The outline mode was outstanding for this. It fit comfortably in the pocket of my field jacket, but so do small children, so I'm not sure it fits the pocket-sized definition.
http://www.alphasmart.com/
Doesn't quite meet your specs, but worth looking into.
A revolution in input devices. Graphics cards, RAM, storage, etc, have all been making leaps and bounds in technology, but we're still hammering away at the same(-ish) keyboard. While I don't know what I'd do without my carpal-tunnel, I'm curious what the replacement for the keyboard will be. I'm not sure if it will be a voice recognition system, or something middle-of-the-road, but I definitely think something like that is a limiting factor for me and PDA's, or the organizer you mention. I just can't separate myself from a keyboard, where I can type ~100 wpm, versus a rickety little Graffiti-esque POS, where I'm doomed to five letters a minute on. Anyhow, rather tangential, but jus' what I'm thinking. :D
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KickingDragon
Get a used PDA and a portable keyboard, such as this.
They are small, easy to carry and really work well. You can download one of the many opensource light-weight wordprocessors out there and use it quite easily in any environment.
Even the older Palms come with IR options, and so communication is not a problem.
Unless you're going to be churning out megs of text daily, it would do quite well.
Check out the Alphasmart website. They make modern word processors. Their products have full-size keyboards, extremely long battery life, and are very durable. The Dana, for example, is made of ABS plastic molded into a great form factor. It weighs 2 pounds and the rechargeable battery lasts 12-15 hours but can be replaced by regular AA's if you need to. It runs PalmOS.
the Alphasmart 3000 is the cheapest version. The battery will last pretty much forever. It is an absolutely basic writing tool (other than paper and pencil) and has a good reputation also.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
My son had problems with writing. His hand strength wasn't great and writing for even a short period would tire his hands/arms. The teacher gave him one of these to use and he was able to transition from struggling with writing to actually getting ideas down on and focussing on the content of the stories. They may not be perfect, but in some cases these machines are great.
21st-Century-Citizen
Keep it there and only read from the chepo device?
Useless.
Do more editing on cheapo device? grep text on cheapo device?
Yes, please.
transfer text to some other device?
As per the above 'Useless" comment.
via what means?
vim, grep and a flash key drive.
how much text?
Well, lesse, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire comes out at 1.6 megs. I think that 2 megs should cover it with a bit of overhead. I can't imagine typing more than that even while sailing from Marblehead to Plymouth (that would be the one in England, not just down the coast a hop).Appears to be a nonissue with todays flash key drives.I suspect that 640k is all anyone would really need.
KFG
Until you forget and wash your pants with the paper still in the pocket. I've lost several business cards and even checks (ouch!) that way.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
Call me crazy but ever since Mead started printing "Mead" down in the lower righthand corner of each sheet of paper, I quit buying their paper. I'm not a subscriber to Adbusters or anything, but why do we need to have the company logo on each sheet of their paper???
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Apple eMate
Basically a robust plastic drop-proof word processor running NewtonOS, with built-in IRDA wireless uplink. Ran for 24hrs on AA batteries. Horrendously overpriced (got ours free through a school, natch), but quite visionary and functional. I often wish I still had it.
I also worked for a company (well, several) that made these:
VTech Postbox Express and Companion
Our products pretty much sucked (sorry), but there were a number of s'okay competitors in the market. Rather than search for portable "word-processor", you probably want to look for "email/web appliance". It's a rich market, and there are some decent deals out there for $100.
Simple Answer - Buy a Palm M100 used. You can pick them up on Ebay, Amazon, etc. for $20-25. Then pick up a mini keyboard for around $20. You've got 2 mb memory and can write freestyle in the "memo" app, then transfer via the Palm Desktop sync software.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I've never used a better pocket portable device for typing documents than a Psion Series 3a (or later a 3c). I've since used a Psion Series 5, a Windows CE clamshell, a Palm Zire 71 with an external keyboard and none of them could keep up. If all I did was type docs and couldn't carry a laptop, I'd carry a Series 3a (or look at an Apple eMate).
You could get a K-Byte ZipIt Wireless Instant Messenger and flash it to run a customized version of Linux. Probably slightly more work than you were looking for, but it would be a great little toy. (Retaining the instant messenging ability would be cool, too.)
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
I had one of those. We bought it new, and it spent a few years in the box in a closet. It has a battery life of about 3 seconds, the digitzer didn't work, and the USB connection didn't work with any modern computer.
I fiddled with it for three days then put it back in the box.
I had one of those for a couple years before I upgraded to an M500. The M500 is similar, but has an SD slot, and slightly better scroll buttons that actually make it a lot easier to use for reading books. I use Plucker to read books, and Convert LITto convert those pesky Microsoft LIT files to HTML.
the applications are bloatless and cheap. you can find alot on p2p and newsgroups if you are cheap. The case is metal but if you are looking for more durability like I was, rhinoskin makes a fited aluminum case. the palm with its included leather cover, would last 100 years in a shirt pocket or a breif case but if you are putting it in a jeans pocket or are a college student the rhinoskin is a must, if you want it to last that long ;)
The keyboard isn't as nearly as durable but it comes with a foamish bodyglove type case that will protect it from most drops that are impossible for an iPod.
http://www2.alphasmart.com/ its incredably handy, my brother used to own one, not perfect in a corperate setting ,but we just called it 'the poor mans laptop'
i've been using a palm m500 with QED for three years now,
and have used it primarily for long text file (400k - 1Mb) editing
and readingfound it a really good system for this. i couldn't care
less about the palm's 'organizer' capabilities, but as a wee portable
text editor and word processor, it rocks!
regards,
j.