Psion Organiser II

Full specifications | 1 Comment

Review

We've already acknowledged the historical significance to mobile computing of Psion's Series 3 and 3a handhelds , but while those models made fortunes for Psion and turned the company into a household name, there would've been no 3a without the Organiser range. And without the Organiser, there would've been no Organiser II.

The first Organiser, launched in 1984, looked for like an overweight calculator, though Psion advertised it as the "world's first practical pocket computer". In fact, the Organiser's computing abilities stretched little further than the management of simplistic databases and with a display limited to a single line of 16 characters, it wasn't terribly practical anyway. Some disappointed owners undoubtedly just ended up using it as a £99 pocket calculator. 

Business buyers of the day loved the idea of the Organiser though, and its popularity was sufficient to prompt Psion boss David Potter to continue development of the product line. Second time around and Psion did the job properly. The Organiser II arrived in 1986 and it was everything the original Organiser promised to be. With the display doubled in height, the memory increased and the usefulness of the software applications ratcheted way up, the Organiser II was indeed a practical pocket computer, not to mention the must-have executive toy of its day.

Though we said it looked like a fat calculator, the Organiser's design was novel. For starters, it had a sliding cover that served a dual purpose -- it prevented the machine from being accidentally powered on while travelling and it was made of rugged ABS plastic that rendered the Organiser if not unbreakable, then extremely durable. The Organiser's also had various connectivity ports -- also a novelty at the time. With the cover slid down, the user could slot in up to two proprietary Psion Datapaks, either for personal data storage or to run commercial software applications.

A final trick was the way that the Datapaks had to be erased. Organiser owners had to invest in a special device called the Psion Formatter, which subjected the underside of a Datapak to an intense bout of ultraviolet light. A modern equivalent might be to microwave your iPhone for five minutes.

The Organiser II's commercial success lasted for the best part of a decade, with later models again doubling the screen resolution and increasing the storage. It is estimated to have sold around half a million units during its lifetime. Some die-hard users continued packing their Organisers until well into the 1990s, but then along came the Psion Series 3. And the rest, as they so often say, is history.

[Specifications]

Processor Hitachi 6301
Memory From 8Kb
Size 78 x 29 x 142mm
Weight 250g
Screen Two- or four-line LCD panel, depending on model
Storage Memory expandable via proprietary Datapaks
Other notables Up to six months' use from a single 9v (PP3) battery

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