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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"When I got home, I did a search for any such devices, and came up with two choices: bulky 1980s machines with outdated connectivity options, found on eBay for pennies - some of these are actually programmable too, interestingly enough; and overpriced 'educational' machines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?
I think there's a major difference between your proposed cheap word processor and a handheld game/organizer, which is the output requrement.
I'm sure you would like to move your documents somewhere, maybe to a desktop for final processing, printing and whatnot? So maybe a USB, IR or a memory slot so that you can transfer data effortlessly?
Although these "expansions" are not expensive, they still cost money. So it's commercially inviable to produce it, because "for a little bit more" one can probably produce a PDA or mobile phone.
And what's wrong with the pencil/paper solution? Paper is a non-volatile memory so you don't have to worry about system crashes or forgetting to save your documents.
From my experience with PDA, you'll write/type about as fast on a PDA as you would on a piece of paper
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Mead v1.0 carbon based cellulose WordPad. Unfortunately, you also need to purchase the Bic v2.0 ballpoint inkjet.
You want to type words into a cheapo, pocket device, that is clear. Then what? Keep it there and only read from the chepo device? Do more editing on cheapo device? grep text on cheapo device? transfer text to some other device? via what means? how much text?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The very first hit led me to these two devices which seem to fit the bill exactly.
Alphasmart
Quickpad
get an old toshiba libretto 70ct.
e tto_70ct
http://ophinity.com/pix/?album=/geek/toshiba_libr
wireless, linux, niceness.
Besides all the functional benefits something like this would have over a little notebook, which are significant (but also mixed), some people are more productive- and perhaps even think better- when at a keyboard than with a pencil and notebook.
People should use whatever device allows them to get their thoughts out into some coherent form. For some, that's going to be a little pocket notebook, and for others who usually do their thinking in front of a keyboard, it'll be a device such as this fellow is looking for.
I'm much more productive (at this point in my life, at least) with a keyboard under my hands than with a pencil in my fingers. Said like that it sounds so unromantic... but I'm interested to hear what sorts of devices are out there.
I would think a PDA and folding keyboard could be snagged on eBay for not much over $50..
You still need a way to get files off. Wireless would be cool (except for certain security issues), or cable (might be cheaper, too).
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.
I remember using these things in elementary school (I'm in college now) -- they seemed decent then, and I'm sure they're even better now. They're a bit bigger than what you were looking for, but they are a simple, portable word processor.
This question reminds me of a joke gift I had a while back. It was a small, elongated, yellow box with the words "Emergency backup word processor" on it. Inside was a pencil with the word "input" and an arrow pointing to the tip of the pencil, and the word "delete" with an arrow pointing to the ereaser. I don't have it anymore, I gave it to my roomate when his hard drive fizzled the night before a paper was due.
Some of us type more than ten times faster than we write and like to transfer our text conveniently.
There are easy solutions though - a used Jornada off ebay and a targus stowaway keyboard cost me less than $100. It isn't the perfect solution, but it actually addresses the poster's needs.
For all of you writing those novels on notecards with pencils, good luck with that. Seems to have worked for Stephenson.
http://www.alphasmart.com/
Doesn't quite meet your specs, but worth looking into.
I've always wanted some cheap portable device designed for taking notes, hacking etc. sort of a sub-$100 electronic notepad w/ a decent keyboard.
:)
The Psion Revo/Diamond Mako was pretty close. It had a nice wide display (but it wasn't backlit), a decent keyboard (for being a 1/3rd size keyboard), a pen interface (for drawing a picture in your notes), and my favorite part is that it was a clamshell design so you could just fold-and-go.
The draw backs were that when it was new it was fairly expensive (I got mine for $50 new, but that's because the stores were just trying to get rid of them). And it had no flash memory (you let the batteries run down and you've lost everything since your last backup), and no way to insert external memory (MMC/SD/CF would have been nice).
A less powerful pda in the same form factor that sold for a little bit more than those "pocket organizers" would seem like a good idea to me. If oyu make it close enough in price to a pocket organizer, but flexible enough to do more than just addresses that'd be great.
Honestly I don't need a 400Mhz cpu, color screen, wireless headset, and 64Mb of RAM. Especially if it means I will have a $300+ device in my pocket that can get broken or stolen.
What would be neat is some arm-thumb or 68hc11 device with an MMC/SD slot(the interface to those is dead simple to do). Running maybe Contiki or some other 8-bit, but "modern" OS.
Although they have compactflash readers(look for SuperCard) for Gameboy Advance, and it's not hard to wire a small or fullsize keyboard into a GBA. You could probably build yourself something interesting with a cheap used gba and some hot glue.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
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
- - - -
KickingDragon
Take a regular TI graphing calculator (you might have one already from high school or college) and add the TI Keyboard. If you have a computer uplink of some sort for the calculator (either a GraphLink or on-board USB for the newer models), you can transfer your documents to MS Word.
(Vernier's not the only source; they're just one of the cheaper ones. TI doesn't sell the keyboard directly anymore.)
I'll agree with an earlier poster that the original Danger Hiptop (T-Mobile Sidekick) has the best keyboard of any other like device, it has the absolute worst connectivity. The likelihood of getting my data off the thing dropped as near to zero as made no difference, so I gave up on it.
The old Apple eMate -- a Newton laptop -- did me well for years. It's got a tripod mount on the bottom, it gets 12 hours of battery life with no problem, it's a real trooper. They only made them for educational folk, but you can find them on eBay still for pretty cheap -- there are a number there now, from $28 to $100. And hey, no moving parts plus a great keyboard. It's the relatively modern equivalent of the '80s word processors mentioned above.
Today, the Sharp Zaurus is the most awesome thing I've used in some time. By that I mean the C750-class clamshell machine, on through the modern 3000 & 1000 devices, only produced for Japan but also available on eBay. And there's OpenBSD for the durn things now, too. Only drawback is battery life. And price -- you're looking at >$500 for one of those.
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!
Doesn't work. You broadcast halfassed ideas to the rest of the world, sounding like an idiot, and the pathway between mouth and brain is very different than the pathway between mouth and fingers. Typing on a keyboard is private, unobtrusive, and a lot of folks are far more articulate when they type things instead of say things.
Gentoo Sucks
Now available cheap. Someone will come along and tell you who sold/branded it in the US - but it does exactly what you want in the way you want it to. No messy external keyboards, decent keys, just enough CPU to perform, etc. etc.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
I'd love something like the Alphasmart Dana except in clamshell style. Doesn't need to be incredibly tiny, just as big as a small keyboard.
Unfortunately, even if I liked the size of this device, it costs around $600. Smaller and cheaper than a laptop, my butt. I'm currently using a used IBM T21 laptop that cost $425.
90 percent of all those scraps never need to make it into any electronic device. and typing a phonenumber again isn't really something I'll break into tears over in sorrow over the time I wasted by not hooking up a pda, walking through some menus and then sending it over... oh... wait...
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The CPU/RAM bundle adds even MORE functionality to your system:
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On the other hand, if you want something that can create hevily stylized documents of high quality, but where you can enter the text quickly, you're probably after a TeX-aware text editor, where you can pipe the output through LaTeX to generate a quality document, but where the source is 100% editable on something that has very low overhead.
But, then, if all you want is a jotter, rather than an actual text processor, you're really wanting something that's a graphics tablet that has enough space for only one letter/symbol, with no display, and two buttons - space and backspace. It would have all the power you'd need for a jotter, and wouldn't have anything you didn't need (such as word recognition).
Now, if what is REALLY wanted is a very fast, very small device, then a 5-key chord keyboard, with memory, should be sufficient. 2^5=32, which means you've enough combinations for all letters and a good range of symbols. A bubble memory would be fine for this, as you're just storing and recalling linear streams. Bubble is good, because it is small, low-power and can survive total loss of power.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'm sorry, but your comment is definitely not "Interesting". The original poster wants something that he can use with a keyboard. That's probably because he is like me and can type 3-4 times faster than he can write with a pencil.
Additionally, it's damn hard to cut and paste (of the non-adhesive variety) handwritten notes and email-drafts.
A few years ago, a number of companies produced Windows CE powered "handheld PCs".
Many of the second-generation models had full-sized keyboards. They are cheap (often sub-$150), and have excellent battery life (10+ hours).
Not to mention that they boot instantly, have no moving parts, often have USB host ports, and have PCMCIA for adding Wifi or ethernet. Not to mention the color touchscreen and capability to add software like a full-featured web browser (NetFront) or word processor (TextMaker).
The 3c has a small, but complete, keyboard, and typing with two fingers, I could get 20-25 wpm. It has a built-in spell checker, 80-column wide screen by at least 10 or 14 lines, can print to many printers, and with PsiWin software, import and export MS Word and Excel files seamlessly. And it runs for weeks on a pair of AA's, and there's a good backlight.
The 5mx has bigger keys, a touchscreen, and a prettier GUI, along with all the benefits described above.
Both fit in a hip or coat pocket easily. Both connect to a PC via a serial port, and your PC probably still has one of those.
Check ebay for units with PsiWin software. Then Google around for a huge library of 3rd party software.
Yes, they are both old, but Psion had more PDA experience in 1992 than Palm has now. Psion software is almostly always amazingly good.
I use a top-o-the-line color wireless Palm these days, but I still think my Psion 3c had it beat in almost all areas relating to software, power, and convenience.
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
I just solved this problem myself by purchasing a new-in-box Palm V keyboard for $1.25 on EBay. (I'm serious.)
The used Palm V itself cost a little more, but it's one of the best products Palm ever made. The Palm V is pocket-sized; the keyboard, when folded, is not much bigger.
This a much more versatile solution than a hunk of text-processing-dedicated hardware.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I see you submitted that comment using the trusty handwriting recognition capabilities of your Apple Newton.
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.
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).
Type it out in plain text/ascii and format it properly when you get home and u/l the files to your real computer via it's RS-232 serial port. 16 + Hour battery life on 4 AA batteries that you can find anywhere. Full sized keyboard, small form factor. There have been many a journalist/writer who swears by one of these for use in absolutely primitive/harsh 3rd world conditions. These little suckers are apparently very tough and tres retro. Wired had an article about the TRS 100/102's and other old/obsolete but still serviceable computers.
Some of the lower memory versions are avaiable /near-mint/used/refurbished starting at $75.
Or check out E-Bay, found a few going really cheap right now:
- Model 100's
- http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&c
a tegory=74947&item=5197944964&rd=1
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- http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&c
a tegory=74947&item=5200179003&rd=1
- http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&c
a tegory=74947&item=5201521879&rd=1
- http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&c
a tegory=4193&item=5200512388&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
- http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&c
a tegory=74947&item=5200683165&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
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a tegory=74947&item=5200683165&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
I sound like a relic, but ahhh, they don't make them like they used to...Model 102's
DaveC
There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
I have a Psion Revo, sold in the U.S. as the Diamond Mako. It's a clamshell design with a small qwerty keyboard and a half-decent word processor. It runs the Epoc OS (which later became Symbian). There's plenty of third party software including a nice Python port and a bash-like shell. I also love the PIM software that comes with it - nothing like being able to actually enter in an appointment (with PDAs I usually just get a load of crap from Graffiti because my handwriting is awful.) It pretty much answers the O.P.'s question, since it was designed as a low price device in the typically expensive handhelds-with-keyboards niche.
The Revo is a great size to slip in a pocket, and not too embarrassing to use on the subway. It's designed to be held in two hands and thumb-typed or held in one hand and one-hand typed. That works pretty well, even though the keyboard is hinged. The keys are hinged at the bottom, so you need to be somewhat careful when pressing them.
The main problems with the Revo are the lack of backlight (nice reflective screen, but useless in really low light) and absence of expansion slots (it'd be nice to have a CF slot for storage or wifi).
This has generally led me to try other similar devices. The obvious one is a Psion 5mx, which is the bigger brother to the Revo, with more expansion slots, a backlight and a non-hinged keyboard. The Epoc software really is great and there's even a linux distro for the Psions. I haven't been able to find one in my price range (they go for about $150 on eBay at the moment).
I recently picked up an HP Jornada 680. That's a handheld PC formfactor, with a pretty nice qwerty keyboard with proper (if tiny) keys and a color backlit screen. I picked mine up for about $100. The downside is that it runs Windows CE from ROM (shudder!) although it comes with Pocket Word which is definitely sufficient for banging out text. There's a linux distribution for this too, but it's not really useable yet (no power saving, so the batteries die after a few hours) - although it is being actively worked on.
So I second the recommendation is go used, and pick up a Psion (Revo or 5mx depending on price range). My worry is that these machines are all 5 years old and no-one is producing new hardware in the handheld form factor. I find a keyboard so much more useful than a stylus and I really don't understand why the markety just died (well, the $600 price tags probably didn't help). Hopefully phones-with-keyboards like the Sidekick may grow up to fill the gap.
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.
don't need to port it to windows, the original windows connectivity software still works :-)
>waiting for my wife to finish eating (she pushes her food around and pouts at it instead of actually eating)
If your wife is with you for dinner, and you start typing while she is eating, it may not be the food she is pouting about...
On the other hand, this is slashdot, so any relationship advice here is suspect...
So that was a first post you were trying for was it?
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'
There are two companies (first for North America, the second for elsewhere), that will provide service for the Psion handhelds (your biggest concern will be batteries for the Revo/Mako models). So the fact that these machines are 5+ years old shouldn't be a real problem.
If you do decide to go the Psion route, go for the 5mx or the Revo Plus (also sold as the Diamond Mako in the US). These were incremental upgrades to the originals that had solutions for some hinge problems the first versions had. I got bit by both hinge problems (Series 5 and original Revo), and I ended up with a Diamond Mako. One of the best purchases I ever made. If I have a choice (I probably won't), EPOC/Symbian handhelds with a keyboard will be the only handhelds I will ever buy. I keep hearing rumors that Nokia may be releasing an upgraded Revo-style handheld (NOT a cell phone), but I think I'm just grasping at straws there.
I don't know if a real word processor would work with such a cheap little processor. My computer dealer tells me I really can't live without word processing software at least as powerful as Microsoft Word. Word is, of course, the choice of most professionals, who do have a lot of money to spend to get the very best. I did once have an older version of Word (Word 6.0), but it wouldn't open any of the newer documents that my friends write with their newer Word 2000, and MS Office XP. (I'm sure I need something with an "X" in it.) It would cost only about $200 or so to upgrade. But I'm told I would need a much faster computer, and at least 512MB of memory, as well as an upgrade to Windows XP. (I do need an "X"!)
I know it sounds expensive, but do really want to be able to add all the fancy stuff (icons and pictures and sounds!) to emails and letters that I write. And I want to be sure to have all the features that the best word-processors are capable of, like macros that run in the background and record my credit-card numbers, then use them to order stuff that I may really, really need -- before I even know that I need it!
I just don't think a cheap little gadget like you're talking about is going to be sufficient.
I have owned an Alphasmart Dana for about a year and a half now, and it lives in a backpack that goes with me pretty much everywhere I go. It is not as small as a clam-shell style device might be but it is lightweight, has a full size keyboard (that is a joy to type on) and is durable as hell. The battery lasts about 20 hours even after a year and a half and it will take three AA batteries in a pinch. It runs Palm 4 and has two SD/MMC slots, allowing for back-ups on the fly (with 3rd party software like CardBkup or Back-Up-Buddy) and a whole lot of additional storage (I have the complete American Heritage Collegiate Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus on mine, as well as a bunch of other things).
At the time that I bought it, the other option from Alphasmart was the AS3000, which did not appeal to me at the time. Since then, though, they have released the Neo. It is essentially the same as the AS3000 but with the form factor of the Dana and a screen that falls somewhere between the two. It runs for 700 hours on three AA batteries. If they had these when I was buying I would likely have chosen a Neo over the Dana. In fact, my mom and I split on a Neo for my sister who is in college now. She has a laptop (a fairly nice one, too) but wouldn't take it to classes unless she absolutely had to (for the normal reasons: weight, boot time, battery life) but the Neo is light and tough and instant on.
Alphasmart has a great user forum that I lurked through for quite a while before purchasing. I still go there from time to time to see what's up.
And no, I don't get any kickbacks from the peeps at Alphasmart. I am just a fanboy, apparently.
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.
The sidekick has a big problem in that the battery is not removable. However, my sidekick lasts two days of regular use (several calls, usually short, sometimes an hour or so) and it charges from dead empty in less then 60 minutes.
But I still hate the thing because you can't install your own programs without applying for a special developer key, which you can only get if you submit your programs to Danger *before* getting the key. (they have a windows-based dev tool you can use to write programs.)
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I guess they just felt their paper wasn't differentiated enough from generic Office Depot brand paper. Before that, once you removed it from the bag, it looked just like any other paper.
This way, the slightly-richer kids can lord it over the rest... "Where's the logo on your paper?"
Or maybe I should boost my Slashdot karma by recommending other readers buy products that I secretly know to be flawed, but conceal that information behind a pleasant smile. If so, may I commend you to a reasonably-priced and rigorously secured operating system?