Psion Organiser II
Vital Statistics
Introduced
1986 |
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What's it like today?
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Credit: Much of the content in this section has come from the Organiser II Homepage (formerly at http://www.org2.com). This content is reproduced with kind permission from Boris Cornet.
The Psion Organiser II replaced the Organiser I in 1986, with a revised image, better keys, more RAM and 2-line display. The first Organiser had just 2K of RAM and a single-line display.
The Psion Organiser is a small pocket computer, built into a rough trade case small enough to fit into a suit pocket. It had many built-in functions like save/retrieve data, calculator, diary, timekeeping, alarms, etc. It even had a built-in programming language, OPL, similar to BASIC.
There are several variants of the Psion Organiser II, as follows:
Psion Organiser II Model CM
16 x 2 display, 8K RAM, 32K ROM
Psion Organiser II Model XP
16 x 2 display, 16K RAM, 32K ROM
Psion Organiser II Model XP/LA
16 x 2 display, 32K RAM, 64K ROM
The XP had several improvements over the CM. The most important of these is that it can use Rampacks and larger datapacks. Multi-lingual versions of the XP/LA (LA=Language)were developed that support 11 languages. Previously, each machine was hard-wired for a specific language, whereas the XP/LA could be switched between these 11 languages. The larger ROM is required to store the messages in all the languages.
Psion Organiser II Model LZ
20 x 4 display, 32K RAM, 64K ROM
Psion Organiser II Model LZ64
20 x 4 display, 64K RAM, 64K ROM
The LZ has further improvements over the XP, including an enhanced 4-line display that can display 20 characters across, and had a better character set. The LZ also has more menu options, including better file handling options, a notepad, international dialling codes and times, calendar, etc. There are also some new commands in OPL. All LZs support three languages.
POS Variants
POS (Point-of-sale) variants of the Organiser II did not have the built-in organiser functions. Instead, they looked in all fitted packs for an OPL procedure called BOOT. The procedure is run if found. If not, "INSERT PACK" or "PACK?" is displayed and the Organiser switches off.