Historical Document · 1987
Personal Computer World, August 1987: Psion Organiser II Benchtest
Personal Computer World's review of the Psion Organiser II.
Historical Document · 1987
Personal Computer World's review of the Psion Organiser II.
A battery-powere an extension to the PC back at base, i. Niklaus looks at the versatile and highly programmable Psion Organi: and one ofits plug-in ROM cartridges, the Pocket Spreadsheet, vY'Y'r 114 PCW AUGUST 1987 dream computer Co arts: the base unitis ¢ Jook u orders, notes, ap| on, aS they occur. WI in the office, you co computer and let the The Psion Organiser fully-fledged compute! the requirements of et unit. It has up to RAM and 256k of battery-power' similar way to contains ready~ cord and remind allows you to | databases, acts dar, provides eig| peatable alarms a culation facility. In addition, the a programming OPL, a rich mixtu on Basic, Pascal mands. You modular routin Software When you turn on the Psion, the screen displays a menu of instantly available facilities: FIND SAVE DIARY CALC PROG ERASE TIME INFO ALARM COPY RESET OFF You select a menu item in a manner similar to that used by desktop compu- ter software: either with the cursor keys and Enter or with the initial letter of the option. Psion markets several software packages which are supplied on ROM cartridges. Once fitted, an extra item is automatically added to the main menu. Select this and the Package starts running. One of these packages, Pocket Spreadsheet, Is reviewed below. OPL The Psion contains a programming environment called a asa Programming Language). To crea fete aan choose PROG from the main menu. You enter the source code via the keyboard. This was the only time | had problems with the small screen, since | like to see a large por- tion of the source code while | am editing. The solution was to write down the program on paper first. The source code is translated into object code which is then saved and run. Errors thrown up by the ‘Trans- late’ or ‘Run’ phase put you back into the source code for correction, Pr rams can be copied to a D, Rampak and run from theres ine you are certain that the program 1 performing properly, you can slate the source code to save space, y.° can add program names to the Pao opening menu. N's OPL is a mixture of Basic and key-words together with Pascal C-style control structures and atin tions. Thrown in for good meagura ft comprehensive set of database ae agement commands. My String, integer and real vari supported, both single and dimensional arrays. Variab| declared as Global or Log structures include Variables ables are 48 One. eS can be al. Contr GoTo, The Psion Organiser Pocket Spreadsheet The Pocket Spreadsheet is one of the growing number of Rompak-based software packages offered by Psion for use in the Organiser Il pocket computer. It provides a full-facility spreadsheet with features similar to those used in Lotus 1-2-3 and Sym- phony. Using the optional Comms Link to connect the Organiser to a desktop PC, you can download Lotus-format spreadsheets into the Organiser, use them ‘out on the road’, then transfer the updated ver- sions back to the PC at the end of the day. The package is provided as a plug- in Rompak and a 130-page, four by six inch manual. When you plug in the Rompak, an additional item, ‘PLAN’, is added to the Organiser’s main menu Psion has been particularly ingen- | ious in implementing a spreadsheet on a computer with a display screen | of only 2 lines x 16 characters, and | has adopted the view that with most spreadsheet applications, you con- centrate on just one or two cells at a time. The default sceen display | shows two rows and one or more columns. Alternative display formats take the place of the status line on | large-screen spreadsheets, and this shows the true contents (for exam- ple, formula expression) of a cell. The spreadsheet is 26 columns wide, A-Z, and 99 rows deep. Psion has used every trick in the book to keep down spreadsheet memory use. | Blank cells use no space. Identical formulas are stored once, and shared | by all the cells containing them. The | column and row limits mean that cell | references are stored in two bytes Ime Lotus-style Absolute and Mixed cell references can be used. a Filofax-type diary — although at 225 one of which, the Pocket Spreadsheet, Commands are implemented from menus in typical spreadsheet fashion. The main menu and two sub-menus provide most of familiar spreadsheet commands. With such a small display area, there is no need for a window facil ity, but you can set up fixed titles in Row 1 and/or Column A. You can protect spreadsheet files with pass. words and encryption Values are stored in variable- length, BCD floating-point format, compatible with Lotus spreadsheets, to an accuracy of 12 digits. Calcula- tion is ‘Natural order’, meaning that you can position formula cells where you like. This cuts down the amount the 116 PCW AUGUST 1987 of scrolling which the lack of win | The Psion Organiser II is a robust, pocket computer which is no larger The outer casing is made of tough grey plastic, part of which slides to reveal the 36 multi-function, calculator-style keyboard and the 2 16 characters LCD screen. The Organiser comes with plug-in ROM grams it is considerably hea is shown in place above. dows might otherwise requit The functions (see provided by the Pocket ABS ACOS FALSE ASIN FV ATAN — HLOOKUP NA ATAN2 IF AVG INT CHOOSE IRR cos ISERR COUNT ISNA DATA LN DAY LOG ERR utility proc code only On effect became my to OPL. i P ENU is one owerful function modular routine concept For instance: y Quit”) uction BENCHTEST The Comms Link The optional Comms Link provides RS232 communications between the Organiser II and the rest of the com- puting world. At its simplest, it en- ables you to print Organiser data or list OPL programs on a serial printer. More significantly, you can use it to transfer files both ways between the Organiser and a desktop computer. The feature that rocks me back on my heels is the ability to use it with the Organiser Il to issue MS-DOS- type commands to access and pro- cess files held on a PC hard disk. In other words, the Organiser now has the ability to use a PC-compatible computer as a file server. The Comms Link is provided as a combination of hardware and both ROM-based and disk-based software. It_is an enhanced version of the RS232 Link previously marketed by Psion, and it comes with a 160-page manual. The hardware consists of a one- metre long cable with a standard 25- pin serial plug on one end and a custom-designed casing on the other. The plug connects to a PC- compatible serial port. The casing contains a 32k ROM with com- munications software extensions to the Organiser‘s operating system and a plug which fits into one end of the Organiser. It clicks into place and re- quires a latch to be pushed before it can be removed. When you have plugged the Link into the Organiser, an extra item, ‘Comms’, is added to the main menu. Selecting this allows you to access a variety of communications facilities via several sub-menus. (See the box below for the full list.) The ‘SETUP’ facility enables you to set all RS232 parameters. Baud rates of 50 to 9600 are supported eae! with even, odd or no parity, an on. Handshaking can use XON, RTS, DTR, or combinations of these. The communications protocol can be set to Xmodem or a special protocol de- signed by Psion. This is intended to be used with Psion communications software in the PC — supplied on a 5¥ain disk as part of the package. The Psion protocol uses CRC error- checking techniques, similar to those used for disk information transfer, to provide fast, reliable transmission of binary files. You can set a timeout of between 1-255 seconds, and have the received and transmitted EOL, EOF and TRN codes automatically trans- lated into appropriate characters. AUTO cycles through all combina- tions of baud rate, parity, bits and stop until contact with the remote device is established. TERM allows you to use the Orga- niser as a terminal to a host compu- ter providing electronic mail or telex services. Session-logging facilities are provided. You can edit telexes or electronic mail documents before or after you send them. CAPTURE allows you to receive in- coming information into a buffer where you can edit, retransmit or leave it in situ for more received data to be appended. You can access the Comms Link facilities from an application — the Pocket Spreadsheet described in this Benchtest provides a good example. You can also access them from your own OPL routines. You can print the source code or send it to another computer. | developed several prog- rams by creating and editing the source code on a PC and transmit- ting the resultant file to the Organis- er for translation and running. Comms Link functions TERM Becomes a terminal TRANSMIT Transmits a file or procedure across the RS232 port RECEIVE Receives a file or procedure across the RS232 port SETUP Sets up RS232 communications parameters AUTO Works out what RS232 parameters the remote device needs CAPTURE Captures incoming data, edits it and re-transmits it BOOT Runs an OPL procedure stored ona connected PC When you install _ several extra keywords are added to OPL. Thi LSET, which sets u parameters; LINPUTS$, which ai of data; 7 LPRINT, which outpu the RS232 port; ai TRIG$, which transi awaits a line of dat. al Provided it is run ir munications program ( Psion on a disk as pai Link package, you ca file server to the Orga BOOT will run Organ particularly communic; tions, which are sto! A set of proce both for the Organise transfer and access fil mode. XTSEND and X files (including binary PC. XFOPEN, XFCLO:! XFPUT, XFPOS and the normal open, clos position and end-of-fi dures on files stored o one file can be open be a PC file or directo: an Organiser diary, co spreadsheet file. The four by six it manual contains 1 technical inform: tutorial section — material is in Conclusion A Comms Link if you are to mi Organiser in an This latest versit but not simple, — The file server software exte zons of the rem and the Comms Link. | also strongly recommend purchasing the Psion Datapak reformatter. A Rampak is very useful during program development. At the time of writing, the cost of such a typical system is: Psion XP £139.50 32k Datapak £34.95 Comms Link £59.95 Formatter £44.95 32k Rampak £79.95 Pocket Spreadsheet £39.95 Some of these prices are rather high, particularly the Rampak, so it will be interesting to see what happens as more manufacturers start catering for this growing market. Conclusion The Psion Organiser Mark Il is an ex- cellent, robust and highly usable pock- et computer of considerable power, albeit with a tiny display screen, However, at the moment it is rather pricey; and | also hope that something will be done about the key-top legends on future keyboards. The OPL prog- ramming environment allows you to develop routines to meet almost any information pro the RS232 Comm: communicate easi the computer wo The Psion Orga held computer quately meets 1 able extension to Mike Gross-Niklaus h programming, tea rial obelt for over and training manag Machines UK for his own company, P Psion is on (01) 723 118 PCW AUGUST 1987