Tag: 1993

What the listing stated:

It fires up and turns on, then get a black screen. Every time I press a key on the keyboard it makes a beeping sound, so it is registering something.

EBay

From a distance, and in my opinion, the fault could be a simple one such as adjusting the contrast by using the Psion key and either of the <> keys. This was often an issue when first turning on the Psion II, you had to turn the contrast wheel. However it could be a terminal one requiring a donor unit. In layman’s terms it could be knackered, (to coin a phrase). But hey, what do I know 🤦‍♂️

Fingers crossed 🤞 as usual.

I have a what looks like a nice tidy little unit here obtained for a very reasonable price £17:69Gbp including postage. These units retailed between £179-£249 when they first appeared back in 1993. However, there is only the one picture in the advert so the rear, sides and hinges could be wrecked. “Caveat emptor” as they say. It does have a problem that will need some investigation. It runs off of two AA batteries and a CR1620 coin battery as a backup, and these will be the first items to be changed, I’ll also check the voltage of that coin battery and replace that if necessary. This is an early version with 256KB of internal Ram. 3a versions from 1995 either had 1Mb or 2Mb of ram. You can also use an external power supply if required, but the batteries in these units have an excellent long life span, so external power is rarely necessary. I’m looking forward to this project. I’ll make a more detailed analysis when the unit arrives shortly.

The Psion Series 3 range of personal digital assistants were made by Psion PLC. The four main variants are the Psion Series 3 (1991), the Psion Series 3a (1993), the Psion Series 3c (1996), and the Psion Series 3mx (1998), all sized 165 by 85 by 22 millimetres (6.50 in × 3.35 in × 0.87 in). Further, a Psion Series 3a variant with factory installed software for the Russian language was called a Psion Series 3aR, and Acorn Computers sold renamed versions of the Psion Series 3 and 3a marketed as the Acorn Pocket Book and Acorn Pocket Book II.

Wikipedia

A little history:

This particular unit dates from 1993 and was the next in the series of Psion organisers that succeeded the extremely successful Series 2 models. It was a massive step forward in design as the whole PDA market was kicking in big time in the early to mid nineties. More info regarding the series 3 organisers can be found here: Psion series 3

And the strange fact for today is this:

Manufacture of Psion 3s was discontinued in 1998 shortly after the launch of the Psion Series 5 (a Psion Series 4 does not exist, due to Psion’s concern of Tetraphobia in their Asian markets)

Wikipedia

What is Tetraphobia?

The fear of the number four: Tetraphobia is mainly suffered in China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, because the word for the number four is similar to the word for death in their languages. Tetraphobia results in many people avoiding referring to 4 in phone numbers and so on.

Cambridge dictionary

There you go, question answered and that was why there was no Psion 4.

Onwards…

What has arrived, and what’s the diagnosis?

The unit has arrived and despite my suspicions it is in an excellent cosmetic condition. Just some very light signs of usage, needs a light clean, all hinges are in place and solid. Everything is as it was all those years ago and all the warranty labels are in place, this unit has never been opened.

I placed the new AA batteries in and it came up with the black screen as the seller had stated. Using the contrast adjustment at this stage had no effect but the buttons were sounding so something was happening. Whilst looking in the memory card doors I could see one glaring issue, there was no backup CR1620 battery, so I dropped one in place . When I started the unit up again the screen went from black to clear, over a few seconds and then I operated the contrast buttons, and hey presto it worked. Watch this little video to see what happens.

I can only surmise that not having the correct batteries in for god knows how long, and then livening up the circuitry must just be like giving Frankenstein a fresh transfusion of blood. “It’s alive!” Well, that’s all I can think it would be.

I’ve run every function on the unit and it all works fine apart from the voice recorder function that seems to have a lot of feedback on the recording. I suspect this might be as I’m using the already full internal memory. It’s not a real problem, I’m just going to have to read up on it, as I could be doing it all wrong. (I have since done a hard reset and deleted old files from the system and this has cured the feedback issue, the voice recorder works fine). However it would still probably work better using an additional drive in the unit, and not the low internal memory.

Just as you could on the Psion II you can write your own programs using OPL language. And it is a lot easier on this unit as you have a full Qwerty keyboard and a much bigger display. There are more applications on this unit than the series II, including word, spreadsheets, DTMF dialler, calculator and others that can be purchased as plug in additions.

I’m really happy with this, if the seller would have just taken a little time to run the unit and have some patience he’d have realised there really is nothing wrong with this unit. Big negative for him, big bonus for me. He could have charged more than double the price for this item, or more, considering current prices on the selling platforms.

Another strange thing i have noticed is that when I’ve left it overnight and started it up the following day it takes a minute or so for the screen icons to appear, just like putting on an old valve radio. So it maybe that a repair is necessary, I’ll have to ask around and see if any else has had this issue.

Edit: A few days later and I’ve looked into this a little more. For some unknown reason, probably my rank stupidity, I’ve checked the coin battery and I’ve installed a CR2032 instead of the required CR1620 and have tonight corrected this and installed the CR1620 coin battery. I don’t know if, or why this would have an effect, but after putting the correct battery in place the unit started up in a couple of seconds even after sitting unused for at least a couple of days, instead of the usual 2 minutes as per the video. I can only think it must be something more related to the capacity rather than the size, unless for some reason the contacts were not sitting true. (There is a slight difference of 4mm in width) I remain puzzled as I thought the battery was just for backup purposes, maybe it does perform more as a computer CMOS battery does, but I’m pleased it’s now operating as it should. I can now stop monitoring the sale sites for units to use as spares.

Sometimes your suspicions pay off, and on this occasion I was spot on. EBay untested items can swing either way and most of the time the sellers use it as an easy get out for not accepting any responsibility. But this time I win, and that makes me happy as I have a very good item for my retro collection.

Thanks for passing by.