The Joys of Yesterday's Tech Today

The Joys of Yesterday's Tech Today
By: Tommy Thomas

Clickity-clack... Clickity-clack... What's that sound off in the distance? It's the sound of something long since gone in the modern era of computing... productivity. To be more specific... it's the sound of getting work done in the writing realm.

In technical terms, the sound you hear is from one of the best pieces of primitive, yet simple technology ever introduced... my new AlphaSmart Neo. There once was a time, not all that long ago, where the digital age of writing was looked at with marvey and joy. Back in the day before the days of social networking, IM's, emails, games and other distractions, the computer made it possible for writers of all genres to sit down and well... write.

Enter the internet age along with excessive eye candy and unneccessary software bloat. Suddenly, the computer had become more of a distraction rather than a tool of creativity. But along the way, companies saw that we were going backward instead of moving forward. AlphaSmart was one of those companies. With its long line of writing machines, AlphaSmart not only reached out to education, but inadvertantly reached out to writers who want simple tools to get the job done!

I'm no stranger to simple, easy-to-use devices such as the Neo. I've been a rabid fan of the long since defunct Apple eMate 300. A machine which I believe is solely responsible for making machines like the Neo a reality. My eMate recently succumbed to the great beyond due to a careless accident on my part. I started checking into trying to find another eMate when I found the AlphaSmart Flickr group. With money being extremely tight these days, Eolake was kind enough to send me my own brand new Neo, on which I type this article now. Many thanks and a hug goes out to you sir!

I've taken to this gem just as I did the eMate! It's light, compact, and the keyboard has a great tactile feel. There's no doubt I'll be writing a lot with my Neo. I write the Welcome To Macintosh column for Low End Mac.

Bottom line: If you want a good, simple, durable writing machine, look no further than the AlphaSmart Neo!

-----
Eolake sez:
Note: the Alphasmart Dana has a bigger screen, but sadly the screen contrast is woefully low, so I did not like it. (Though I intend to try learning to type without even looking at the screen.)

The Neo is also durable. The instruction manual says that I can drop it and it will keep on working. Rumor has it one was run over by a car with no harm.
For advice, Flickr has a most helpful discussion group about AlphaSmart Writing tools.

Bruce added:
"Note: the Alphasmart Dana has a bigger screen" But the Dana also has a disadvantage to a writer.
The Dana runs Palm OS, which means it can distract a writer just as easily as a laptop computer. Solitaire, other games, and even (from the Alphasmart web site), "Dana Wireless offers Wi-Fi (802.11b) capability for checking emails, instant messaging, and more."
You might as well buy a used iBook instead.

Good point. The One-Trick-Pony aspect of the Neo is a strength.

Neo review "The ultimate writing machine" in four parts, here.
Another review.

It's a testimony to the love the owners have for the Neo that you can almost never find one for sale on eBay. How many gadgets can you say that about!?

AlphaSmart Neo

I may have found my typewriter.
Like I said, the Dana from Alphasmart is near perfect, except the screen contrast sucks.
But I found out that the Neo from Alphasmart has the same wonderful keyboard, and while the screen is smaller, it has much higher contrast (due to no overlay for touch and no underlay for underlight).
These machines have great, full sized keyboards, with a full key travel unlike laptop keyboards. And yet they only weigh about 900 grams, are very rugged, and run for like 100 hours on three AA batteries.

Update: articles/reviews about the Neo. (See other links on that page too.)


Chet:
It's more like 700 hours on 3 AA batteries. I've actually experienced it.

Linda M Au:
Chet beat me to it. Definitely more like 700 hours. Or, as I think of it, changing the batteries every January. :)
You'll love the Neo. It's like an epiphany to a writer. :)

Author Tera Lynn Childs uses an Alphsmart, writing in cafes too.

Dedicated Word Processor

Ray mailed me the story below.
It's a thing which has been puzzling me for a couple decades now: why isn't there a decent dedicated word processor? Especially a portable one. It would be easy to make a wonderful one, since the screen and power requirements would be much less than for a web-surfing machine.
(Of course I know why. I think. I guess the market is perceived as too small.)

Some products, like the Dana, have a good start. But I bought the Dana, and the screen is simply lousy. It's too small and the contrast is way too low. A pity, since the keyboard is great.

But for heaven's sake, if they can make that $200 third-world portable Xo thingy, somebody can make a good dedicated portable word processor.

Update: I guess I should mention that I mean a machine for writing on. As soon as you get into formatting and all that jazz (basically desktop publishing), a PC/Mac is much better. But a real writer, novelist or journalist, can really use something which is just great for typing on, has several lines of text on a high-contrast screen, and weighs less than a kilo.

---
Ray wrote:
Away back in the early nineties, I had a little Canon word-processor, and back then, those only had a viewing screen big enough to show about three words of the active line of typing. But otherwise, it was a marvel of technology, and had features not found in the more famous IBM Selectric, or the others of that day, now all extinct. One rainy weekend, I sat down to it and let my imagination go wild on the topic of the perfect word-processor. It ran to two or three pages, single-spaced.

When I sent that missive off to 'Dear Mr. Canon' at their Canadian headquarters, I thought they'd all have a good laugh and forget it. A couple or three weeks later, though, I got a letter from their Manager of Customer Service, saying that they liked my ideas so much, they'd sent them on to Tokyo headquarters for consideration by their engineers. That was all I heard about it until one day many months later, when I walked into the nearby mall's office supply shop, to get more ribbons for the word-processor which prompted all that.

There on the display table by the front doorway sat the new model Starwriter 30, with all the features I'd been day-dreaming about, plus many others. I looked it over, and asked the manager if he had one in its box in the back. He said, "Yes, but don't you want to try it out first?" I replied, "Hell no! This little beauty has some of my own ideas in it, and I already know it's going to really kick ass, so just bring me one, please." I bought it on the spot, and I've still got it, and Canon is still supplying me with the IR-100 ribbons for it, even though all the others are now probably in the junk. Mine's still working just as perfectly as it did the first day I unpacked it. Unfortunately, Windows 95 came out at almost the same time as this Canon word-processor, and the great little Canon machine had one glaring flaw - its computer language is different from the standard used by the world's real computers, so the disks I use in it aren't readable on my computer. The result was predictable - it quickly faded from the scene. But it's a hell of a word processor, and it does things that no other one in history has ever been able to do - like holding ten pages of single-spaced typing in memory before needing to download onto a floppy disk. And being able to hold 108 separate text files on one of those 1.44 DD floppies. And that viewing screen? It has one that holds six full lines of typing plus a toolbar on top, and it tilts on hinges to avoid overhead glare. Like I said - it's a really marvelous little machine. And I may have the last one in captivity at the moment....and I'm keeping it :)

TTL said:
Your specs sound much like the Eee PC. I'm not sure if it's an improvement over the Psion Netbook, though. Or, for an even lighter (pocket size) writing tool, the Psion 5mx is still unmatched.
I'm not sure if any of these portable gadgets help much in actually getting stuff written, though. To complete anything of length it seems the cushion of your chair plays a much bigger role.

Eolake:
As it turns out, Flickr has a good Alphasmart community, and they informed me that the Alphasmart Neo has higher screen contrast than the Dana, so I'm getting one of those.

I like writing in cafes, it helps me concentrate.

Neither the Eee PC nor the Psion have full sized keyboards, unlike the Alphasmart machines. And those have good keyboards even, better than any keyboard on a laptop I've tried.

Update: search this blog for more on the Alphasmart Neo. (Search field is upper left.)

iPad/Neo video demo

I have made a little video demonstration of how the Alphasmart Neo can be used as keyboard for the iPad.
Or using the iPad as screen for the Neo, if you prefer!
I had set the text very large (36 point) so it would be seen on the video. In normal text size, a *lot* of text will fit on the screen, of course.

iPad with Neo as keyboard from Eolake Stobblehouse.

I have upgraded to Vimeo Plus, so you can see it larger on vimeo.com, see links above.

(By the way, I think Vimeo has smart ways of convincing you to upgrade to paid membership... less waiting time, bigger videos, etc etc.)

On writing, (portable)

Does anybody have tips on how to find or make a writer's group? This is a broad question, but several readers are interested.
---
Some are also interested in what machines are good for writing when away from home.
For me, the key aspects are 1) light weight and 2) a good keyboard. Of course, the these qualities are not often combined.

If one can live with a tiny screen with low contrast, the Alphasmart Neo is an amazing writing tool. It can't do anything else, but it's a fab typewriter, and the keyboard is full sized and feels great. And it weighs well under a kilo. (Video. (Update: sadly the connection shown in the video does not work with the newest iOS.)) It stores what you write in one of nine files, and when you come home you can "slurp" the text onto a Mac or PC for saving and editing.

The new 11-inch MacBook Air is also right up there at the top. It weighs only a kilo (about 2.2 pounds US), has an outstandingly crisp screen, and a full sized keyboard, although it has a rather short key travel (how far you push down a key). That's normal with compact notebooks of course. And unlike the Neo, this is a full-blown computer, you can do anything you can do with a desktop computer.

An iPhone or iPod Touch or an Android device with a bluetooth keyboard (wireless) is perfectly useable. Of course a ten-inch device like the iPad or the Xoom gives more space for the text and editing, but for pure writing, it's not strictly necessary.
For portability, this is unbeatable. An iPhone 4 and a foldable keyboard like the iGo/ThinkOutside both fit in a pocket! Something like the iConnex Freedom (pictured) is slightly larger, but still pocket-sized, and closer to full size, although all of these mentioned I can touch-type on, even with my large hands.
A downside to foldable keyboards is that the peripheral keys usually have a different layout than a normal keyboard, so they demand a bit of re-training for touch-typists.

UBS and the ALDITCS

So, it seems that the the ALDITCS works well with USB devices well beyond just the cameras that the USB/camera adapter was designed for. For example good microphones, headsets, and keyboards (though it briefly complains about the latter.)
I'm particularly interested if it will work with an Alphasmart Neo as a keyboard. Because the Neo is small, sturdy, and has the greatest keyboard ever. Its only flaw is a very small and very dark screen. Well, if it work with the pad, you can safely say that that problem is handled! By several orders of magnitude.

Why typewriters beat computers (updated)

Why typewriters beat computers, BBC news article.
"The Japanese multinational Brother sold 12,000 electronic typewriters last year [2007] in the UK"

Twelve thousand? I'll be durned, I thought they were dead. But then I thought the same about vinyl records.
We'll see how it goes with film. I've no doubt a minority will keep using it, but one issue is, I've been told, that running a film factory is difficult and very, very expensive, so it requires a pretty good-sized market to make money.

Update: Jeff R points to this guy who is attempting to make his own photographic film. Ambitious!

Update: the article also said: "Typewriters are much more straightforward to use than computers as they only have one function - typing,"

Yes, fair enough. Personally I prefer a "typewriter" like the Alphasmart Neo. Barely more expensive, it has a better keyboard (to my taste), is much more compact, and it's much easier to edit the text and get it to the Net or to print (it does not have to be scanned or typed in again).
I got the link from this post. I like the first comment by "Hookmt".

It is this historical, emotional pull which draws a particular kind of student or aspiring writer to the typewriter.
I don't know why, but they usually seem to be men, and their heroes are hard, brilliant men from the last century. Posing on their blogs with an antique machine, all that separates them from Hemingway are two dozen cocktails and his ability to write.

LOL. I'm often dithering about simple-tech movements, because they have a point. But also, there is usually an air of romance which feeds the whole thing, it seems to me. Often coupled with a touch of simple technophobia.

And an interesting historical note:
Typing classes mushroomed at the end of the 19th Century, and this helped many women to enter paid work for the first time. By 1901, Britain had 166,000 female clerks, up from 2,000 half a century before.
It was a limited emancipation. The new employees (often called "type-writers" themselves) were accused of stealing jobs from men, depressing wages and sexually tempting the boss, and their chance of career progression was often nil. But for women to have any job outside the home was revolutionary.
-

Laidback Laptop stand

TTL directed me to the Laidback Laptop stand. I've ordered one. I could have used this back when I had my neck troubles.

I would have liked the wooden version, but Laidback We R tell me they are fresh out of them and don't plan to make more.

TTL added:
Actually, you directed me to it! I just followed your link to the AlphaSmart Neo and somehow landed on this page. I thank you for this discovery!
I wish could find the reference but I once read about a study that concluded that problem solving and creative thinking is easier when laying on your back. I've tested this many times and have come to the same conclusion. Also, I know several people who do all their mental "heavy lifting" when laying down. I've never typed when laying on my back, though. This will be an interesting experiment.
Of course, there's a risk of falling asleep. But if you're that tired, then the moment probably wasn't right for problem solving to begin with, and a nap is in order.

If you find that reference, let us know. It does seem that I'm most inspired when lying down. Maybe it's just the freedom from distractions.
I suspect, though, that that Inspired state of mind is different from the state of mind necessary when actively writing.