[rescue] Small serial terminal

[Kurt Huhn]

Mike Meredith <mike at blackhairy.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> On Tuesday 18 February 2003 2:09 pm, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> > I've got a Psion in a box at the house.  It's seen better days, but
> > it is prettty nifty hardware.  I don't recall that this model had a
> > com port on it though.
> 
> Which Psion? They've been going a long time, and there's a big pile of 
> possibilities. All the ones I recall had a serial port on, but you do 
> need a special cable. I think they all have a "Comms" program built-in 
> to the ROM (I've just checked that the Psion5 does).
> 

I just pulled it out yesterday at lunch, spurred on by this talk of Psions. 
I forgot to look at the model number (Psion5 sounds right though), but I did
notice a wierd square cable connector - presumably the comm port.  I lack
the cable.  Also, the 'button bar' above the keyboard has come unattached
from the shell.  In looking, it seems like it used to be adhered with rubber
cement or something - I'm wondering if it would be safe to use rubber
cement, or if I should use some epoxy or something.

I forget where I got this, possibly a junk drawer/box somewhere.  It wold be
nice to recondition it and make it useful again.

> I've used a Psion 5 as a console on an emergency basis, and the keyboard 
> certainly makes it the best emergency console I've ever encountered. 
> One of the Sun engineers that I bump into carries a 5MX in addition to 
> his PDA for this reason. 
> 

Excellent point.  You're right, using this as an emergency terminal would be
darn near perfect.

> Looking at it, a Psion netBook would probably be pretty close to ideal 
> as a non-emergency terminal except for the price. Seeing as I'm looking 
> at getting something like this, I think I'll leave a note for myself 
> next year to have a look to see if the prices have dropped enough.
> 

/me opens web browser to see what that is...

> And it'll probably run Linux :-|

Hey, at least it's not Windows CE!  ;-)

-- 
Kurt                 " Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to flagellate 
kurt at k-huhn.com        myself with a soldering iron."
                                                   --Kris Kirby