Psion Organiser II (1986)

Launched 1986

Launched thirty years ago, the Psion Organiser II is arguably the world's first commercially successful PDA. Combining a usable set of applications with an expandable software and hardware platform, the Organiser II shifted half a million units in its lifetime and introduced the power of handheld computing to both companies and individuals alike.

By modern standards the Organiser II has a familiar feel to it, with a footprint similar to a large smartphone such as an iPhone 6, although about 50% heavier and more than three times thicker. The front of the Organiser was almost entirely taken up with a keyboard (with the keys arranged alphabetically) with a small two-line LCD on the top. Inside was a Hitachi CPU clocked at a little under 1MHz and power was provided by a tradition 9 volt PP9 battery which could run the Organiser II for months.

There were a variety of data storage options, from simple RAM modules that would lose data when the battery was removed to "write once" programmable ROM packs (which had to be erased with ultraviolet light) and later EEPROM packs. Hardware expansion included a serial module which allowed you to transfer data to another computer system. It didn't take long for corporations to adapt the Organiser II to allow them to collect data "in the field" which could then be uploaded to corporate mainframes.

You could program your own applications, or you could use the inbuilt diary and calculator to organise yourself. Third-party applications became available, and there was even a rudimentary word processor.

As you might guess, this wasn't the first Psion Organiser, but it was a huge improvement over the original launched two years earlier. And although Casio and Sharp had been making pocket computers for some time, the Organiser II is acknowledged by many as being the first usable personal digital organiser.

The Psion Organiser II was followed by more powerful PDAs running the EPOC operating system, which eventually evolved into Symbian. Because of the large number sold and the almost legendary reliability of these devices, there are plenty of Organiser IIs on the market today, with prices ranging from a few pounds to just shy of £100 depending on condition and features. And unlike a lot of vintage devices, the Organiser II is something that you can still use today to keep yourself.. organised.

Image Credit - babbagecabbage via Flickr

HTC STRTrk (2006)

HTC STRTrk

Launched May 2006

Picture yourself a decade ago. The iPhone and Android platforms haven't been invented yet, clamshell phones are still popular and one of the main contenders in the smartphones wars is Windows Mobile. So perhaps you can understand why HTC decided to try to squeeze Windows into a standard flip-phone design.

The HTC STRTrk had a clumsy name, it was originally called the Star Trek before the presumed involvement of lawyers. At this point HTC didn't sell handsets under their own name and the most common moniker for this was the Qtek 8500.

You were expected to muddle through Windows on the tiny 2.2" QVGA display, using only the navigation keys and it wasn't touch-capable. The STRTrk was a strictly GSM-only affair with no 3G or WiFi, internally it had a 200 MHz CPU with 64MB of RAM, 64MB of storage plus a microSD slot. On the outside was a 1.3 megapixel camera, and the whole thing weighed just 99 grams.

It was woefully under-specified for a smartphone, and too fiddly to use as a feature phone. Perhaps it isn't surprising that it didn't really sell way, and consequently is it extremely rare today with estimated prices for used models being around €35 or so.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 - Peak BlackBerry (2011)

BlackBerry Bold 9900

Launched May 2011

By mid-2011, sales of BlackBerry devices were at their peak. Despite competition from the iPhone and Android handsets, this classic messaging device was still hugely popular. And out of all class BlackBerry handsets, the Bold 9900 probably represents "Peak BlackBerry".

Designed very much in the theme of the messaging devices that pushed BlackBerry to popularity in the noughties, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 (aka the Bold Touch) had the familiar little QWERTY keyboard, a trackpad and a small but high-resolution 2.8" touchscreen display. On the back was a 5 megapixel snapper, and the Bold 9900 supported HSPA+ and WiFi connectivity.

If you were a fan of the BlackBerry 7 and earlier operating systems, then this was definitely the device to have. But the question arose.. who WAS a fan of the BlackBerry OS? Google's Android and Apple's iOS were more powerful and more elegantly designed, and no matter how often BlackBerry tried to tweak this devices it was like putting lipstick on a pig. Or perhaps polishing a turd.

This isn't to say that it was a bad device. If messaging was your thing, then this was very hard to beat. But web browsing was horrendous, apps were awful and the whole thing looked like a relic of a previous era. Which it was.

It wasn't long until sales began to slide, and although BlackBerry made a few lower-cost "classic" devices following on from this, they were instead concentrating on an ill-fated attempt to move their devices to a completely new platform based on QNX. And that effort really made sales drop off a cliff. Recently, BlackBerry have started producing Android handsets with support for BlackBerry services built-in.

Despite all the gloom, the 9900 still has its fans and prices for a good refurbished one can be €100 or more. It isn't really very practical as a modern smartphone though, although there are still many people who love their classic BlackBerry smartphones and don't want to give them up.

USB - Universal Serial Bus (1996)

In production May 1996

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) hit the market twenty years ago this month. Designed to provide a standard interface for almost every kind of peripheral, this now-ubiquitous feature actually got off to a rocky start.

Twenty years ago, a well-specified PC would have a huge variety of ports. There would be one or two serial ports, typically using a 9-way D-type connector that could be used for mice, modems or some types of printer. A bigger 25-way D-type would act as a parallel printer port, there might be a 15-way D-type for a joystick, one or two PS/2 interfaces for a keyboard and mouse, some system might also feature a SCSI port for attaching an external hard disk, and also some 3.5mm jack plugs for audio input and output. All of those ports could be replaced by USB ports, about the only other ports you would need would be a video port and a network connection.

USB 1.0 hit the market in May 1996, but it was very slow and rather buggy. Operating system support was very sparse with Windows 95 only offering rudimentary support in August 1997 with much better support in Windows 98 in June 1998. The original iMac was the first Apple device to offer USB support in August 1998, which coincided with the release of the much-improved USB 1.1 at the same time.

In 2000 USB 2.0 was launched with data transfer rates of up to 480Mbps. This made it possible to use USB devices as disk drives and ushered in the era of the thumb drive. Subsequent speed increased with USB 3.0 and 3.1 followed in 2008 and 2013 but didn't really make much of a market impact.

It wasn't really until the mid-2000s that legacy ports started to vanish completely from PCs, but finally it did become the de-facto standard for most type of computer peripheral. In 2014 the USB-C standard was launched, which finally added reversible connectors which promised to eliminate the 20-year bugbear of connectors that never seemed to quite fit.

[Image Credit]

Nokia X7: the beginning of the end (2011)

Announced April 2011

For years and year the Symbian operating system had been a cash cow for Nokia. Even five years ago with the iPhone and Android smartphones being firmly established in the market, Symbian was still outselling any other mobile OS at the end of 2010.

Symbian had a loyal fan base, it was an established platform with a wealth of applications and Nokia had a wide variety of high-quality devices to run it on. But the roots of Symbian lay in the 1990s and although it was well-suited to relatively simple smartphones, more powerful hardware meant that the much more powerful iOS and Android platforms could simply do more.

Nokia wasn't sitting around doing nothing though, and they had been slowly developing the Linux-based Maemo operating system which was fundamentally very similar to iOS and Android and certainly had the potential to be every bit as good. But Nokia hadn't made a Maemo phone since 2009 and development along that path had stalled with a disastrous attempt at merging the platform with Intel's Moblin to create MeeGo. By 2011 MeeGo was looking like a dead duck.

With no high-end devices in the pipeline the strategic situation was looking grim, but sales were still pretty buoyant. But then in one probably the most controversial decision in Nokia's history, CEO Stephen Elop announced that Nokia were to phase out Symbian, discontinue MeeGo and move all smartphones to the Windows platform.

The idea was that Symbian would be phased out gradually over a number of years, but customers had different ideas and sales of Symbian devices started to collapse. Worse still, Nokia didn't actually have any Windows phones and it wouldn't until the end of 2011. It was the beginning of the end for Nokia, who as of 2016 are no longer in the mobile phone business.

Launched in the path of this oncoming storm was the Nokia X7 (strictly called the X7-00). It was an unusual device with tapered-off edges, a large 4.0" 360 x 480 pixel display, 8 megapixel camera plus all the usual smartphone features that you'd expect and even the operating system had been spruced up. Although the pricing was broadly similar to a midrange Android of the time, the specifications were struggling to keep up. The fact that it was one of the best Symbian devices ever could did not seem to matter to consumers who suddenly lost interest in the dead-end product line. Symbian was essentially dead a year later.
Today, prices for the Nokia X7 are pretty high with decent unlocked models coming in at about €100 or so which is actually more than a contemporary iPhone 4. It seems that this obsolete device still has a few fans after all.

Nokia N93 (2006)

Announced April 2006

Nokia's N-Series range of high-end smartphones had been making waves for a year by the spring of 2006, with several interesting devices coming to market. April 2006 saw the launch of the unusual N93 clamshell phone, launched alongside the forgettable N72 and popular N73.

The main selling point of the N93 was the camera module, installed in the hinge (as found on the N92 and N90 phones). This 3.2 megapixel unit had Carl Zeiss optics, could capture VGA resolution video at 30 frames per second and most unusually for a phone it has a 3X optical zoom. Presumably all of this made the N93's camera quite bulky, hence it was hidden in the hinge with a twistable screen to make it usable.
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The Nokia N93 was a Symbian device, making it a smartphone.. although the 2.4" 240 x 320 pixel display wasn't a touchscreen. It supported both 3G and WiFi connectivity, could output directly to a TV, came with expandable memory, Bluetooth, a multimedia player and even had an FM radio.

It was a well-specified but chunky device, coming in at 180 grams and over an inch (28mm) thick when closed. It was expensive too, priced at €550 before tax and subsidy. Despite the apparent desirability of the N93, it was only a moderate sales success. Eight months later a slimmed down version was produced, the N93i.. but THAT device was announced just one day before the original iPhone which ended up getting all the attention.

Because it is such an unusual device, both the N93 and N93i tend to be relatively expensive these days, with prices ranging between €50 to over €600 depending on condition. A good unlocked example of either model can cost around €200.

IBM 3800 Laser Printer (1976)

IBM 3800 Printing Subsystem

Announced April 1976

Announced forty years ago this month, the IBM 3800 was the world's first commercially available laser printer. In one form or another the 3800 was in production for a decade-and-a-half and revolutionised high-volume computerised printing.

Beating rivals Xerox to market by a year, the IBM 3800 was a massive device that could typically print about 167 pages per minute. Today, even a high-end device such as the Ricoh Pro 1357 would struggle to keep up. Crucially though, the IBM 3800 used continuous stationery rather than cut-sheet paper which must have helped with the throughput. The print resolution was about 160 dpi.

It wasn't cheap - even the 1987 model cost a staggering $175,000, but then you would hook it up to an IBM mainframe which would have cost you a couple of million dollars. Strictly an enterprise computing component, the 3800 must have been a welcome relief from the deafening noise of banks of impact printers.

It wasn't until the mid 1980s that laser printing because remotely affordable on the desktop, with the breakthrough product being the original HP LaserJet. IBM span off the printing business as Lexmark in 1991, which still exists today.

Today you can pick up a new small laser printer for less than €50, with typical very high volume systems coming in at €35,000 or more.

Image credit: IBM Archives