The Last Psion | Alex @thelastpsion@oldbytes.space
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Moved instance, so time for a new !

I'm Alex and I have a PDA problem.

In 2018, after 16 years of using various portables, I decided to try my hand at developing hardware and software for my beloved Series 3c to help me with journalling and creative writing.

6 years and repeated sidequests later, I've ended up doing a lot of research into the SIBO/EPOC16 platform, and done my best to document it when I can. I've also nudged former developers into open sourcing their old Psion apps.

My current main projects are:

  • , an -based USB drive for SIBO SSDs.
  • Rewriting the Psion SIBO (16-bit 8086) C SDK, including updating the docs (with ) and rewriting the original DOS tools as FOSS apps. I'm currently using to create a drop-in replacement for , the Psion OO C preprocessor. (I want to eventually write a new compiler targeting EPOC16. Eventually.)
  • Anything else that tickles my bouncy brain.

Outside of , I'm your common-or-garden British nerd. I'm a Linux user - mostly Arch, but I dabble with others. I also like a bit of and I'm planning on giving a go very soon.

I used to be a senior computer monkey, specialising in on-prem SME infrastructure (I lament the loss of vSphere). Now I train others to become computer monkeys (for better or worse). As a result, sometimes you'll see me wrestling with old Cisco ASAs, Ubiquiti APs, or modded kit running .

Generally, I like making things do stuff, especially if it's stuff that the thing wasn't originally designed to do.

Photo of a fully constructed PsiDrive 0.0.1, including a Raspberry Pi Pico mounted on top. There is a SIBO solid state disk (SSD) plugged into the 6 SIBO-SP pins. A microUSB cable is plugged into the Pico. To the left of the PsiDrive is 128K Flash Psion SSD.A photo of my stand at the Festival of Portable Computing (early 2024) at the Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, UK. On the table is a selection of Psion devices, including various SIBO/EPOC16 devices (Series 3/3a/3c/3mx, Workabout, Siena, MC400), a few EPOC32 devices (Series 5/5mx), a few PsiDrive boards, many SIBO SSDs, some boxed software. There is also an Amstrad NC100, a Microwriter MW4, an Acer netbook and a 2009 iMac. The Acer and iMac are running Haiku. The iMac is running the MAME-based Psion SIBO emulator.A screenshot of a KDE Plasma desktop, running on Arch Linux. The main window in the background is Konsole running an SSH session to a Haiku box, which is running tmux. In the foreground is a Remmina window, connected a VNC session on the Haiku box. On the Haiku desktop, three copies of the MAME-based Psion emulator are running - a Series 3, a Siena and a Series 3mx. The 3mx is running the game "Horace In THe Mystic Woods."A screenshot of KDE Plasma running on Arch Linux. The background window is Kitty running tmux. In the main tmux pane is NeoVim showing some CTRAN-ng source code, written in Object Pascal. In the smaller pane on the right is CTRAN-ng's help output. In the foreground is a copy of DOSBox Staging, also showing CTRAN-ng's help output. Both have been compiled with Free Pascal.
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