Hardware
Former Psion Employee on the Psion Netbook Trademark Flap
The trademark tussle over the term Netbook continues to provide some interesting twists and turns. The latest is from David Hughes who is an ex-Psion employee as he tells a bit about how Psion let things slip through their fingers. Here’s an excerpt:
I remember playing with a pre-production netBook giving my feedback as to how I felt the EPOC OS should be adapted to work on the bigger screen and thinking we had a very cool device here. Psion used external design consultants Therefore for their hardware design, and the netBook was another triumph of industrial design.
As with the Series 3 and 5 PDAs that preceded it the netBook had a clever hinge that made the device seem to grow as you opened it revealing a keyboard that seemed larger than it should be. The hinge itself was wrapped in leather so it felt like carrying a leather book or Filofax. As well as an almost full size keyboard the netBook had a touch screen and solid state internals. Writing this now I realise that the Psion netBook really was ahead of it’s time.
A good read from Mr. Hughes that adds to the story.
