MC400 or MC600 ============== Note: this post was written some time ago. I just forgot to upload it. I have found and interesting blog of someone who is using the PSION MC400 these days [1] (even for some sort of on-line work!). This is interesting and pretty inspiring, I must say. I have both the MC400 (a EPOC/SIBO OS machine) and the MC600 (a MS-DOS machine). Actually, I like the MC600 better. It is not because its OS interface (there is the DOS 3.x which is the somewhat unfriendly operating system - it's very basic and limited, it even does not have command line history in its shell). It is probably because its bigger versability. There are many DOS programs. There are also some ports of open source programs which are (or were) often used in the UNIX/BSD/Linux world like the Vim (well, 5.x as maximum), the SC spreadsheet (6.22), the Gnuplot (3.2, I think) and so on. Some DOS TeX distribution can run here in theory (in practice, it does not fit because of limited storage size). There also can run commercial DOS titles if one has them (word processors, spreadsheets and so - I only have the C compiler here). It is possible to run stuff like PDA synchronisation utilities (for the Atari Portfolio, Cambridge Z88, PSION Organiser II and so on) and even development environment and emulator for the Organiser II. Even the WWW browser is available (but I have to find a way to connect the thing to the Internet - there is a serial port for this...). In other hand, the MC400 as a touchpad (an early one which is a bit unusual by today's standards but in general it works) a better screen (though I suspect that 600 and 800 have the same screens and the MC600 uses just a half of vertical resolution because of the DOS/CGA limitations) and a very nice GUI. The funny fact is that the GUI machine has (and needs) less RAM (256 kB) than the DOS one (1-024 kB). The 256 kB (which is shared with the internal ramdisk - the K: disk drive) is of course limiting as one cannot run too much programs at one time. But the DOS box can generally run just one full-featured program at one time in any case! The MC400 with GUI can run the word processor and the spreadsheet at once, plus calendar or other tools. The problem is that the SIBO system and its software have many limitations. There can run only programs designed for this particular machine. It is not possible to run software developed for the later PSION Series 3 machines (they have to be modified for that). So one is generally limited to: a plain text editor (also works as a simple OPL language IDE), a calculator, a calendar program (which is quite nice) and a communication software. If one has an additional software then there can be also the word processor (a simple one but it can do - I think - tables and can use the RTF format), the spreadsheet (a rather powerful tool but without any ability to make graphics) and one or two games. There is also an English language spell checker. And this is all. It is also good to mention that the OPL language cannot do any graphics nor GUI elements - it only outputs to the text window (the GUI functionality was added only in the Series 3 line). If one can live with these few programs then the M400 is a great and very comfortable machine. If one needs something else the he/she is out of luck... I actually use the MC400 for writing of texts and for messing up with the OPL. The MC600 I use for writing of blogs, for operating my PSION Organiser II fleet, for some C programming and for making spreadsheets in the SC (and for other things I forgot to mention). If feels more bare bone (because of the DOS) but allows me to do more things than the more sleek MC400. This text was written on the MC600 in the Vim, of course. Reference(s): [1] https://zedstarr.com