Psion Organiser

Psion Organiser II

The Psion Organiser was the brand name of a range of pocket computer developed by the British company Psion in the 1980s. The Organiser I (launched in 1984) and Organiser II (launched in 1986) had a characteristic hard plastic sliding cover protecting a 6x6 keyboard with letters arranged alphabetically.

Early Psions are very robust (as witnessed by tech support people who were able to retrieve data from machines run over by cars and even forklift trucks) and they have been sold in very large numbers (about a million). Some continue to be used commercially, although the firmware of the two-line models fails to acknowledge dates after the end of 1999. However, there is a patch available. The Organiser had an independent user group (IPSO) for nine years, with a worldwide following, until the establishment of the Series 3 made it largely redundant.

Production of consumer hand-held devices by Psion has now ceased; the company, after corporate changes, now concentrates on hardware and software for industrial and commercial data collection applications.

On an episode of The Gadget Show (first aired on 30 March 2009), the Psion was pitted against the BlackBerry for a place on the show's Hall of Fame. Whilst the Psion was highly praised as a device that pioneered portable computing, the accolade was ultimately given (by host Jon Bentley) to the BlackBerry.

Organiser I

The Psion Organiser I model, launched in 1984 was the "World's First Practical Pocket Computer". Based on an 8-bit Hitachi 6301-family processor, with 4KB of ROM and 2KB of battery-backed RAM, and had a single-row monochrome LCD screen. The size in mm with the case closed is 142 x 78 x 29.3, and the weight is 225 grams.

The machine provided a simple flat-file database, calculator and clock, and had no operating system. The Organiser I supported removable storage write-once devices which used EPROM storage. The machine could host two of these so-called DATAPAKS (or simply PAKs), to which it could write data but which needed to be removed from the machine and erased by being exposed to ultraviolet light before they could be re-used. As Psion had patented the use of EPROMS as storage device it was impossible for other device manufacturers to copy this innovative approach to mobile storage.

The original 1984 cost was £99 (GBP) and $199 (CAD) and included one Datapak and one Utility pack.

Organiser II

Psion Organiser II with cover

Psion Organiser II (open & closed) - Models XP & LZ are shown on 5cm squares

Memory modules for the Psion Organiser - (on 5cm squares)

In 1986, the successful Organiser II introduced a number of hardware improvements, a better keyboard and display, a much larger ROM and either 8K or 16K of battery-backed RAM, and featured a capable newly-designed single-tasking operating system. The first Organiser II models featured a two-line display. The new model supported a number of different types of improved DATAPAKs containing either EPROM or battery-backed RAM storage each storing between 8k and 128k of data. Later flashpaks (EEPROM) and RAMpaks were added to the range, capable of storing up to 256k on each extension slot.

The machine had vastly more application functionality, including a number of built-in application programs, a diary and alarm clock, and featured end-user programmability in the form of the successful Organiser Programming Language (OPL), a BASIC-like language which was compiled to intermediate code, in contrast to the interpreters which were commonly available for other consumer computers of the time. More advanced users could reach into the system machine code routines either via direct machine code, or via calls from OPL.

The Organiser II was widely used for commercial applications in companies such as Marks and Spencer, where it was used on the shop floor, and in the world's first large scale application of mobile technology in government where over 3000 were used for benefit calculations by the Employment Services department of the UK government.

The Organiser II also had an external device slot into which various plug-in modules could be fitted, including a device which providing an RS232 port (called 'CommsLink') to enabling it to communicate with other devices or computers. This "top slot" also supported various other hardware additions, such as telephone dialers, a speech synthesiser, barcode reader and even a dedicated thermal printer. This latter was used by several banks as a counter-top exchange rate calculator for some years. As it was easy to get hardware specifications, numerous bespoke devices were developed by small companies such as A/D converters and even an interface to the entire range of Mitutoya measuring equipment, allowing it to be used in quality control for various car manufacturers. Later models in the Organiser II range offered other hardware improvements, with 4-line displays, and also models were introduced with 32, 64 and 96KB RAM.

Subsequent hand-held devices

The name "Organiser" was not used for later Psion handhelds, such as the "SIBO" family Psion Series 3 and the 32-bit Psion Series 5 machines which were of a clamshell design with a QWERTY keyboard. In terms of hardware architecture and operating system had no links to the earlier "Organiser" range, other than the end user programming language which shared a great deal of structure with OPL.

The "SIBO" family name stood for "SIxteen Bit Organiser" and the improved version of the OPL language (with window and focus controls) was at the root of what is now sold as the Symbian operating system, currently the most widely used OS in smartphones. This change was more significant than appeared at the time. The consumer level 'high' programming language still shares features with OPL, but the developer toolkits were from then on focused on programmers familiar with C and only the Symbian operating system remains.

The first similar device made in the USA didn't appear until 1985 and was manufactured by Validec.

External links

• The Psion Organiser II Homepage - Everything you ever wanted to know about the Psion Organiser II, and more...
• Psion website - the operational division of Psion PLC.
• Psion Organiser History - website by Steve Litchfield.
• A detailed history of Psion around the time of the Series 5
• Psion Organiser Files to Download