Lmst

Note to self:

Using a Psion 3 as an Internet Terminal:
* Install nfsc.
* Disable serial link (<Psion>+L)
* On the phone start TCPUART app as usual
* Start nsfc
* Under Unix → Protocol select "Terminal only"
* Under Serial select "TTY:A,9600,8N1,no flow control"
* You should now have a shell on the phone
* You can now use lynx, or a mud client

#psion #psion3 #tcpuart #shell #terminal #nfsc

/cc @thelastpsion

Does anyone out there know how EPOC16 and EPOC32 calendar and contacts sync through #Psion PsiWin worked under the hood? I'd love to add support to Reconnect (https://reconnect.jbmorley.co.uk) and plptools (https://github.com/plptools/plptools) and I'm not yet sure where to start.

The collection grows!

This is the full list. Those using screen readers might want to make a coffee first...

Writing An Interpreter In Go - Thorsten Bell
Writing A Compiler In Go - Thorsten Bell
Computers And Quantity Surveyors - Adrian J Smith
Digital Design Using VHDL - Dally, Harting, Aamodt
VHDL By Example - Blaine C Readler
The ZX Spectrum ULA - Chris Smith
Design An RP2040 Board With KiCad - Jo Hinchcliffe, Ben Everard
High-Level Languages And Their Compilers - Des Watson
The Unix Programming Environment - Kernighan, Pike
The C Programming Language (2nd ed) - Kernighan, Ritchie
C Style: Standards and Guidelines - David Straker
Variations In C - Steve Schustack
C For Engineers - Edward Arnold
Software Engineering In C - Darnell, Margolis
Programming Abstractions In C - Eric S Roberts
The Little Book Of Pointers - Huw Collingbourne
Illustrating ANSI C (revised ed) - Donald Alcock
C++ All-In-One For Dummies - John Paul Mueller, Jeff Cogswell
An Introduction To Programming And Problem Solving With Pascal (2nd ed) - Schneider, Weingart, Perlman
Advanced Programming And Problem Solving With Pascal (2nd ed) - Schneider, Bruell
Data Structures Using Pascal - Tenenbaum, Augenstein
Programming For Change With Pascal - David J Robson
Recursion With Pascal - J S Rohl
Oh! Pascal! (3rd ed) - Doug Cooper
Programming Psion Computers - Leigh Edwards
Introduction To Microprocessors - Levelthal
The 8086 Book - Rector, Alexy
Assembly Language For Intel-Based Computers - Kip R Irvine
Computer Organisation And Assembly Language Programming for IBM PCs and Compatibles (2nd ed) - Michael Thorne
Working Effectively With Legacy Code - Michael C Feathers
The Basics Of Hacking And Penetration Testing (2nd ed) - Patrick Engebretson
Computers And Early Books - Mansell
The Amstrad CPC464 Manual
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum Manual
30 Hour Basic (standard edition) - Clive Prigmore

#shelfie #golang #compilers #pascal #programming #programmingbooks #retrocomputing #vhdl #psion

Shelf full of computing and computer science books. Full list in the main post.

I've also just updated the #HaikuOS release of #deark, a very handy little image conversion tool.

It works on most OSes and is great for extracting images from old #retrocomputing files. For example, it converts old #Psion PIC and MBM files to PNG.

https://github.com/jsummers/deark/

The Psion Series 3 was a pioneering personal digital assistant (PDA) released by Psion PLC in 1991. It was one of the earliest truly usable pocket computers, and it set the stage for many of the mobile devices that followed—including smartphones. (30 sec)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYXeD7mwR5E

#Psion #RetroComputing #PDA #Ad

You can emulate #Dragonfell on modern systems via DOSBox and a free #PsionSeries3 emulator for #msdos. There's an emulation package that provides step-by-step instructions for obtaining and installing the two emulators, as well as a version of the game packaged specifically for those emulators. Future plans might possibly include an #msdos #cga version of the game, but in the mean time, this is a good solution. Get it from https://cyningstan.itch.io/dragonfell-psion-3 #Psion

A screenshot of the Psion Series 3a emulator for MS-DOS, running under DOSBox. Dragonfell has been installed, its icon showing at the top left of the emulated Psion's display. The resolution of the Series 3a is 480x160; most of the 640x480 DOS screen is therefore blank. Although Dragonfell is designed for the original Series 3 with its 240x80 resolution, the Psion Series 3a runs it fine, scaling up the graphics to fit the Psion Series 3a's bigger screen.

Finally, I've uploaded the STLs and project file to MakerWorld for my #Psion Pi #raspberrypi Cyberdeck. All the links you need are at the bottom of this blog post.
https://www.recantha.co.uk/blog/?page_id=22470

When two opposing armies meet in the same region in #Dragonfell, battle commences! The players adjourn to the battle map, where the individual units fight it out in the region's terrain; whoever is victorious holds on to the region. Battles can take many turns, and there can be a number of battles fought during each turn on the strategic map. The game can be downloaded from https://cyningstan.itch.io/dragonfell-psion-3 #Psion #PsionSeries3

The battle map showing a battle that has just started. Player 1, whose turn it is, has six ogres and two dark elves, these totals shown on the left. Player 2 has a wizard, a dark elf, and a couple of ogres. The stats of the current unit, highlighted on the left, are shown in the right-hand panel. The black-filled bar on the right indicates that this dark elf is in full health.

Each region on the #Dragonfell production map provides resources for the upkeep of existing forces, and can also be used to generate more units, each region generating a specific type of unit. Resources aren't stored, so you need to keep control of as many regions as you can if you want to maintain large armies. You can cancel production in certain regions to avoid producing units you can't afford. Get the game at https://cyningstan.itch.io/dragonfell-psion-3 #Psion #PsionSeries3

A screenshot of the production map, from the perspective of player 1. Regions owned by the player have terrain shown in the same way as on the strategic map, and of those, the ones producing units have those units shown. Beside the units is a progress bar showing how far through production the unit is. Dark shaded regions are those controlled by the enemy, and lightly ghosted regions are those owned by nobody.

#RaspberryPi #Psion Pi #Cyberdeck project write-up complete! Just need to upload the files to GitHub at some point and add a couple of magnets to hold the bottom plate in place! 🙂

https://www.recantha.co.uk/blog/?page_id=22470

3D printed case in orange and red housing a Pi 4 and screen with a Psion 5 keyboard

All #Psion #gamedev of #Barbarians was during the year 2010. Psion had stopped making and supporting consumer pocket computers many years before, so attention for the game was modest. A couple of years later it felt like I was the only person interested in Psions, so I stopped developing games for the Psion range altogether. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians

The most impressive Psion version of Barbarians was for the colour notebooks, the Series 7 and netBook. Though capable of 256-colour graphics, Barbarians used 16 colours to keep storage requirements down. This is a screenshot for the development version; that ghastly cursor was replaced with a hollow black square before release.

On the #Dragonfell strategic map, you move your forces around the land, where you can have up to ten units in each region. Units can be moved together as large armies, or can split up and move individually in different directions if that's what your strategy demands. To maintain control in a region you need at least one unit there, but you'll probably want to concentrate more units at the borders to defend against invasion. The game is at https://cyningstan.itch.io/dragonfell-psion-3 #Psion

A screenshot showing the strategic map of the game, not long after the start of the game. Ogres, dark elves, and dragons are starting to spread across the land. But the enemies have yet to meet, and the first wizards have yet to appear.

The last 3 days of my #DecemberAdventure brought some #Psion-adjacent refactoring (https://jbmorley.co.uk/posts/2025-12-30-december-adventure-day-29/), serial ports and unease (https://jbmorley.co.uk/posts/2026-01-02-december-adventure-day-30/), and documentation and 3D design (https://jbmorley.co.uk/posts/2026-01-04-december-adventure-day-31/).

I'm planning a bit of a wrap-up in the next couple of days—sad to see it come to an end, but looking forward to continuing some practices and applying them to new work.

Something quite exciting for #Psion software development. This is a video of #EDisAsm (an EPOC16 app) being compiled with TopSpeed C (a #DOS #compiler) in a Linux terminal.

emu2 is a text-only x86 DOS emulator. It's not like DOSBox, which gives you a command prompt, graphics and realistic 90s clock speeds. You give it an executable - CLI or TUI - and it runs it.

Why am I excited? This means that it's possible to call TopSpeed C from a script on Linux, such as a Makefile, just like any other native compiler.

Also, it's fast. It runs at the full speed of your CPU.

If you're interested in emu2, the project page is here. https://github.com/dmsc/emu2

#retrodev #retrocomputing

Finally I ported the #Barbarians again to the 32-bit #Psion range, the #Series5, #Series7, #Revo, and third-party licensed versions like the Ericsson MC218, the Geofox One and the Oregon Scientific Osaris. For these machines I added connected textures to the map, a battle animation, and stylus control. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #gamedev

The 32-Bit Psion version of Barbarians was the only one to feature battle animations. The 16k ZX Spectrum lacked the memory for such fripperies. The DOS version was done for a jam, so time was lacking to implement battle animations there.

#Dragonfell is for one or two players. Two-player uses hotseat mode, which is more convenient on a real #PsionSeries3 than on a desktop computer, as you can pass the #Psion back and forth. Nobody has to look away or leave the room! There are three levels of computer play: easy, fair, and hard, for when a human opponent is unavailable. But opponents should be easy to find: who wouldn't want to play with one of these cute little machines? Get it from https://cyningstan.itch.io/dragonfell-psion-3

A screenshot of the initial game setup menu on a Psion Series 3. In front of a low-res 1-bit monochrome version of the cover image is a menu with the options of "Human against Easy Psion", "Human against Fair Psion", "Human against Hard Psion" and "Human against Human".

Annonce : je recherche un câble link RS232 pour Psion 5MX, si jamais vous avez ça dans un tiroir ou que vous en voyez un dans le grenier de vos parents.

Vos boosts sont très appréciés !

Edit: this blew up a bit. I am willing to pay for the cable and shipping from within the EU!

#retrofit #psion #retrocomputing

We celebrated the second day of Christmas at my father's house. I brought my broken #Psion Revo, and we built new batteries into it with some soldering and part of a ballpoint pen spring. I think I'll keep bringing bits of tech to work on, to have something to do together.

If the Revo is reliable now, I'll look into building software for it in the new year.

When #Barbarians was finished on the #OrganiserII, I moved on to the 16-bit range of #Psion computers, the #Series3 and its related models (3a/c/mx, Siena and workAbout), updating the user interface and graphics to suit the new machines, but leaving the game play intact. These machines featured more memory, from 128k to 2 megabytes, and had graphics resolutions from 240x80 to 480x160. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #gamedev

A screenshot of Barbarians on the Psion Series 3a, 3c, and 3mx. The higher resolutions of some of the 16-bit machines allowed more detail in the graphics. Note the whale and the little ship off the coast. The Series 3 was the first machine to settle on the 9x9 square window onto a 16x15 square map, something used in the ZX Spectrum and MS-DOS versions too.

@pflegekraft Ja, die Lenovos sind alle von Lapstore, führer, vor Jahrzenten waren die ja an der Worendorfer Str. und hatten damals auch #Psion #Handhalds betreut. Ich habe immer noch einen Psion Serie 5 im Einsatz! Er schlummert aber die meiste Zeit aufgeklappt und Staub geschützt im Schrank. Der Flachbandkabelverbindung zwischen Bildschirm und Mainboard traue ich nicht mehr, habe dieses Flachbandkabel früher schon öfter mal gewechselt. Und die Familie psioniert, wir hatten 4 Psions im Einsatz.

#Psion

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