The Typeframe PX-88 Portable Computing System

Posted by birdculture 20 hours ago

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Comment by rwl4 18 hours ago

These kinds of products are drop dead gorgeous to me. Any time I see a device that has an Amiga 500 form factor or similar, I feel a compulsive urge to click buy. But after many, many of such purchases, I've learned my lesson.

I buy it, I play with it a little bit, but the reality is my phone, iPad, or my laptop can do every single thing better.

Maybe not with the same swagger. But ultimately, as I get older I realize I'm trying to produce with the least friction possible, and usually these devices have either highly constrained touch interfaces, shrunken keyboards, or both.

I've always said that if somebody would create a new HP 200LX device with the same chicklet keyboard that I'd buy it in an instant. But now I realize that "ideal" device for me just reaches back to my contextual memory of state of the art devices of the time. A time when we couldn't type on a 6" screen, or use a detachable keyboard. So a chiclet keyboard you could thumb type at 40wpm was a revelation. But we have come a long way.

In the end, alas, these devices really are just a novelty, at least for me.

Comment by mcv 1 minute ago

I get more of a BBC Micro vibe from this than an Amiga one. It's the red keys, probably. Either way, I love the aesthetic, but I have no idea what I should actually do with it.

Comment by nxobject 17 hours ago

> But now I realize that "ideal" device for me just reaches back to my contextual memory of state of the art devices of the time.

I think as well about that… as well as the work I do that pays my bills, and how efficiently I need to do it to keep my job.

I get nostalgic after Psions. Small clamshell designs are great - I can do work on the go without lugging a fragile laptop!

Well, no, actually - I need to do things in R, _quickly_, at a speed and efficiency that wasn’t possible back in the 90s. And by the time I’m done I don’t have any patience for the virtues of “distraction free computing”!

Edge to edge high resolution screens that can simultaneously show graphics and an terminal and a ChatGPT session. The ability to constantly pipe large datasets into memory to and from disk, while holding up to R’s profligate use of memory.

I’m just not meaningfully productive otherwise. So: I would love this, but it would be a toy that I’m sure I’ll use for a bit while I wax nostalgic about the mythical days people did everything on a VT-100.

Comment by anthk 16 hours ago

SSH with Mosh it's your friend.

Comment by fmajid 14 hours ago

I loved my HP 200LX, and I bought a Planet Gemini as well as a GPD Pocket for the same reasons you described.

But I am also 55, and my eyes can't deal any more with a screen less than 11" in a general-purpose computing device (as opposed to a phone or tablet, which have an OS and GUI designed for the small screens), so my portable devices are now a Chuwi Minibook X and a Thinkpad X13. The Thinkpad is a revelationm as despite its size it is lighter than almost anything else, including an iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard.

Comment by hug 14 hours ago

I also use a Chuwi Minibook X -- to be frank, it's possibly the best machine I've ever owned in terms of size versus functionality.

It isn't without its flaws: I wouldn't ever use the pre-installed version of Windows (the one that doesn't allow you to open services.msc or Task Manager), because I totally distrust it. The fact that the panel is natively 50hz portrait on an inherently landscape device is painful. The default hysteresis settings on the trackpad are awful, the RAM speed by default is stuck at 4000MT/s...

But after an hour or two of hacking Arch into an acceptable shape and solving all of those niggles, it does absolutely everything I need in a portable machine, and is small enough to fit in a tiny sling bag along with everything else I carry around on the daily. It "only" gets about 6 hours on battery, but that's the biggest downside. And 6 hours is plenty of time to cook.

With a full-screen terminal and a keyboard that is very acceptable for the 10" form-factor, I can hack on anything I want wherever I want. Niri as a WM is an absolute dream on this thing. I basically don't bother carrying around my personal M4 macbook pro anymore, and it has been relegated to sitting on a desk and never moving from home.

Comment by spants 1 hour ago

I used to sell the Epson Px8 and the NEC 8201, referenced here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/fhfmzn/th...

Nice bits of kit, but as I am old now.... my eyes don't work as well as needed for these small screens.

Comment by DannyPage 20 hours ago

The website design and product reminds me of the c100 - https://caligra.com/

But this makes a lot more sense, can DIY, and uses the full body with the embedded touchscreen.

Comment by fmajid 14 hours ago

$2000 seems ridiculously overpriced. They are based in the City of London and I suspect they are cargo-culting the Bloomberg Terminal, hence the name.

Comment by F7F7F7 9 hours ago

Meh. When I see Developer Terminal I’m thinking more Mac OS Terminal where I live out my days and nights than Bloomberg’s Terminal.

I know Bloomberg’s is iconic in the financial world but that’s a different persona.

Also, before the responses to me start to pile up, yes: I am aware of the UNIX underpinnings that NextOS/MacOS relies on for Terminal and the influences thereafter.

Comment by jhbadger 19 hours ago

Needs microcassette drives like the original PX-8 (which I actually had for a time, although after it was discontinued and sold by liquidators for a fraction of its former list price).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epson_PX-8_Geneva

Comment by c22 18 hours ago

It looks like there'd be room to stick one to the right of the screen, above the main board. I'd prefer a minidisc drive, though, to bring it into the 21st century.

Comment by ErroneousBosh 18 hours ago

My first thought too :-)

Comment by mikerg87 19 hours ago

Any comment on the battery life? My TRS-80 model 100 could get about 2 full work days on two AA batteries.

Comment by shakna 18 hours ago

A Pi on a 3.7v, with touchscreen and keyboard... In my experience that is in the range of 4-6 hours.

Though, considering all the model 100s I keep staring at are in the range of $600-1000, tradeoff seems acceptable.

Comment by xgulfie 15 hours ago

They are sub-200 on eBay

Comment by shakna 6 hours ago

If you want parts, sure. If you want a working one, not so much.

Comment by rcarmo 5 hours ago

I like this kind of thing, but like many on this thread have mixed feelings. nostalgia vs the cyberdeck concept vs practicality don’t really yield a good enough appraisal.

Still, it’s a nice design. But the iPad Mini I’m typing this on (even without a physical keyboard) can do so much more.

Comment by weddpros 12 hours ago

I dearly remember seeing a PX-8 in the hands of a person (was it by a pool?) and thinking "it would be so nice if work could look like that". It must have been Byte magazine?

I was a kid in France, now I'm working remotely from Bangkok: dreams come true after all.

Comment by b800h 19 hours ago

Launch a Kickstarter to make pre-built versions of this IMMEDIATELY.

Comment by c0nsumer 10 hours ago

This is really neat, but it bugs me that the screen isn't centered on the keyboard.

Comment by Animats 11 hours ago

What does the red PANIC button on the keyboard do?

Comment by Hackbraten 7 hours ago

I'd expect it to be a synonym for Escape, inspired by the mechanical keyboard subculture.

Comment by Animats 6 hours ago

Aw. I was expecting it to bring up a connection to an AI help system.

Comment by protocolture 13 hours ago

I honestly need ~5 of these. But the sequel product might suit my use case even better.

Wondering if I can make this cheaper.

Merge some of the parts together into a single piece. Instead of the Power Hat and battery I could maybe just squeeze a commercial Power Bank inside.

Comment by gorgoiler 13 hours ago

The sequel product does indeed look pretty rad:

https://www.typeframe.net/docs/ps-85

The keycaps are the semiotic iconography designs created for Alien (1979):

https://wharferj.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/ron-cobbs-alien-se...

…not that anyone here didn’t already know that, I’m guessing!

Comment by protocolture 10 hours ago

Yeah that was my interest. I want these as terminals for my Alien RPG game.

Comment by 19 hours ago

Comment by hulitu 7 hours ago

> The Typeframe PX-88 Portable Computing System

So it is a Raspberry Pi 4 c with 2 microHDMI and a strange keyboard. You need an adapter to connect it to a monitor or TV. Oh, no. It has a very small touch screen as a display.

I'm sure gnome-session will look great on it.

Comment by bitwize 19 hours ago

Holy crap, the front copy on this web site even reads like an 80s PC Magazine ad.

Comment by chaostheory 10 hours ago

I would get rid of the screen and replace it with projection glasses.

Comment by exasperaited 17 hours ago

Instantly in love with the 80s ad design cues in the website design. Disappointing that the 3D design files are Fusion, though; this is fully within FreeCAD’s scope.

Comment by ZeroConcerns 20 hours ago

Yeah, lovely... But can we please stop retconning obsolete technology into something to strive for? The Epson, Tandy, Psion and Nokia almost-like-a-laptop systems of the time were pretty neat, but not magic.

Really: you could lock me into a room with just a pencil and a ream of blank sheets, and nothing of value would come out, and that's not because of the technology or the distractions, but just... well...

Comment by iamnothere 19 hours ago

To each their own. If there were a Psion that supported modern email, calendar, and task standards, with wifi sync, I would carry it most days. I basically never make phone calls anymore, and I always found the old greyscale LCDs to be very legible.

Caveat: such a device should not be infested with shitty spyware like everything else these days.

Comment by freetanga 19 hours ago

Isn’t that a Palma from BOOX? And I believe there were 1-2 competitors (Hisense phone?)

Comment by iamnothere 18 hours ago

Those don’t have physical keyboards, and all run Android which rules them out. I also prefer old school greyscale LCDs to e-ink, as e-ink has issues with ghosting and slow refresh.

The closest modern device is the Planet Computers PDA, which can run Linux, but it can’t run mainline Linux and it has a modern color screen that uses too much power.

Comment by wowczarek 16 hours ago

I was going to mention Planet before I saw your follow-up comment. I bought their Gemini, and it seemed interesting for a while, but being a phone with a keyboard, still effectively a phone, battery life wasn't great and again a phone, my default was never to shut it down, and it would always be out of juice if not used for a while. Eventually it outdated itself sitting in a drawer; just didn't feel right. The external notification screen seemed like a good idea but too clunky for general use, and then the awkward fingerprint sensor position and accidentally touching things when opening / closing. I was actually considering it during my post-BlackBerry withdrawal period, but it just didn't cut it, and while it had the roots behind it and some seemingly nice productivity software, a Psion it just wasn't.

Comment by fmajid 14 hours ago

I wish they made their keyboard into a standalone Bluetooth device, it's far better than anything else in its size class.

Comment by lproven 3 hours ago

Bluetooth is a PITA.

This is the 21st century version of an axiom: it's an XKCD.

https://xkcd.com/2055/

Pairing is a pain, charging is a nuisance, battery life is a constant worry, responsiveness is dodgy... there is nothing good about it. Give me something built-in, cabled, and always-on.

Wireless is for fashion victims.

Comment by pjdesno 19 hours ago

This is tempting.

I fairly frequently leave my phone in the office and take a clipboard full of lined paper and a ballpoint to a place where I can write without access to the internet - I've got a number of published CS papers and at least one funded grant where a significant amount of writing was done in longhand on paper.

Of course this would require a bit of software work and maybe a brain swap to make it into the sort of portable typewriter that I'm really looking for, but given this as a starting point it should be fairly easy.

One question I have - what is the finished weight?

Comment by iberator 19 hours ago

Fun and nostalgia IS value! Same as minimalism.

It's fun to push old hardware to the limits and develop software/hw for it (such us wifi for apple 2 from 1979 hehe)

Clunky hardware has one advantage too: It's usually a single tasking tool. Great for focus and running away from WWW.

Your kid can play pac-man and Tetris without fear of popups, credit cards, scams, hate and porn.

Comment by exasperaited 17 hours ago

I know a few people who would love a device that gave them only the things they need and none of the rest. A great keyboard, enough room for writing.

I use an iPad with a keyboard when I need this kind of “writing room” thing, but I know someone who uses an ancient electronic typewriter.

FWIW when my disorganisation is catastrophic, I go out for a walk, leave my phone at home if I can, sit on a bench, and try to organise my life in one side of A4. And then if there’s a task that I can start by writing, I do it there, with a pen.