The Freewrite Alpha - thoughts and ramblings

I have long been a fan of the "distraction-free writing" principle, using as I do an AlphaSmart 3000 amongst other devices to write without the distractions/complexity/faff of a full-sized laptop. Indeed, I used that very machine to draft this as I can just about use it whilst my back recovers, whereas sitting with a laptop is still a no-no at present. Once again, thank you to my good lady for doing the transfer and layout. Anyhoo, amongst the hardware that I have mentioned in the past (but have never purchased) is the Freewrite range of writing tools from Astrohaus. The full size Freewrite and the more portable Traveller have been on the market for a while now and, whilst reviewing reasonably well, have always fallen foul at the cost-benefit analysis stage. You may be more productive but for what are effectively electronic typewriters, they are pricey - the Freewrite is £576, the Traveller £433 respectively on Amazon UK at the time of this post. According to the latest news from Astrohaus, that may be about to change. 

Screenshot of the Alpha website.

Having been teased for the last couple of weeks, Astrohaus have finally announced their latest device, the Alpha. Taking its cue from the long-dead AlphaSmart brand (including using the domain name), the Alpha is a slate style writing device that brings the concept of the AlphaSmart into the modern day. Or so it appears. 

As you can see, it's not a bad looking device, although it could be equally at home in the bathroom as well as a table top. It very much looks functional. Spec wise, it has a claimed 100 hour battery life, a reflective 6 or 4 line display (dependent on text size), low profile key switches, a kickstand for angling the device, a one million page internal storage and a weight of less than two pounds. Dimensions are 215x320x18mm. Connectivity is either via USB-C or Wifi. So what's not to like?

Buckle up, gentle reader!

Let's go with the price first. When you eventually get to this page here, you can see that the price for early bird buyers in $249, rising to $349 later on. That's about £210 and £295 (at the time of writing). For an early bird price, that's something I'd be prepared to pay, albeit at the upper limit. However, there are two issues with this: firstly, does that price include tax - in the UK, that would be VAT which is charged at 20%. If I buy either of the other Freewrite machines on Amazon, VAT is included in the price. Secondly, what are the postage costs? 

Another important question is: does this device actually exist? Aside from the images on the website, there is nothing to say that these aren't just renders. Also, Astrohaus are taking $1 payments as an expression of interest that, should you choose to, you can cancel before production begins. The website does not state how or when you will be told this - I really think they should detail the whole purchasing process. Additionally, there is no release date. Ok, you say, it's only $1, but I am still handing over money on the expectation of receiving goods when I pay the rest of the balance, but Astrohaus haven't given any indication as to when that will be. 

This very much feels like Astrohaus are trying to get a product out without using a crowdfunding site. I can understand why. Both Kickstarter and Indiegogo charge fees which would impact the overall amount they would have to earn before being successfully funded. But here's the thing. If this were a Kickstarter, there would have to be proof of hardware before the funding could begin - that proof is lacking at the moment.

Speaking of the hardware, I would like to see and hear how that keyboard performs - after all, the typing experience is a key (oh dear!) part of using such devices. I'd also like to know more about that screen - the six line 15pt option would seem to be tiny on the images displayed. I'd probably use the four line 26pt option, but I really want to see this in action before dropping the best part of three hundred quid on the Alpha. A demo video of real life hardware to go with the slick website would be wonderful.

It is not my intention to give the Alpha a kicking, nor Astrohaus' approach to selling new hardware. My concerns are valid - as any potential purchaser would want to know: what's the device like in action, how much am I on the hook for, and if I do sign up, when will I get the goods? I dearly love using my AlphaSmart 3000 but it is slowly on its way out so a replacement is going to be needed. I have emailed Astrohaus an asked about the pricing, delivery, timeline and cancellation process. If I get a reply, I'll share that on Twitter. I'll also pop it into the AlphaSmart, QuickPAD and Portable Word Processor Enthusiasts Group on Facebook here. For the time being, this is definitely a "maybe" product. If more information is forthcoming and the potential price stays closer to £200 rather than £300, then I am tempted. If not, all I can say is that I wish them the best of luck. 

The Amstrad NC100 - portable perfection?

A new year has arrived and this being the first new post of the year, I thought I'd begin with a retro-tech post, forward looking and all that malarky. As some of you may have noticed, I have a bit of an interest in old tech. More specifically, the tech of the early 1980's to early noughties. This encompasses the period of first generation consumer computing tech hitting the market to the final generation before the homogeneity of today's smartphone culture, where two operating systems and an almost identical form factor have combined to remove almost any individuality from the market. Indeed, where there are modern day unique devices: The Astrohaus Freewrite/Traveller, the Gemini handheld and even the open-source Pandora-derived Pyro, these tend to be small scale production models with prices commensurate to their niche appeal.

In part, this interest stems from growing up looking at such devices and thinking they were the dog's danglies (and some actually were for their time). It's also in part in seeing how much technology has developed and whether or not the original device designers got it right at the time but no-one noticed. There is also the self imposed challenge of seeing if tech discarded as obsolete fifteen, twenty or even twenty five plus years ago can still cut it today. Obviously, I am not going to try and run Pocket Internet Explorer from a 1998 vintage Windows CE palmtop or lug around an Amstrad PPC-512 portable from 1988. That would just be silly. No, it's more a case of if the device and software can still be used today, can they be used in a genuinely productive manner.

As such, it's time to talk about the oldest piece of retro-tech (outside of games consoles) that I own: The Amstrad NC100. Launched for the princely sum of £199.95 in 1992 (that's about £406 in today's money), the NC100 is an A4-sized slab of plastic with a qwerty keyboard, mono-LCD screen and 64kb of RAM. Powered by the ubiquitous Zilog Z80 processor racing at 4Mhz, you could expand the memory via PCMCIA cards of up to 1Mb (wooooo!!!) capacity. Four AA batteries offered a twenty hour lifespan, you have an RS-232 serial port for PC connectivity and a parallel port for printers. Primary applications include a word processor, calculator, diary and organiser. It even has BASIC for any programming needs and a terminal emulator/XMODEM ability for file transfers - indeed, a reviewer at the time of launch typed her review on the machine and filed back to the office via a 300-baud modem link. Take that you youngsters with your high speed fibre :-). In short, this was a device I really wanted when I was a teenager and I finally have my hands on one now, including it's original packaging which has not handled the passage of time too well.

In not too bad a condition considering the age.

Back when packaging was practical and informative.

First things first, the look. It follows the design of the Cambridge Z88, another device that found heavy use in educational and journalistic circles due to its ease of use and portability. It's a slab of black plastic, yes, but livened up by brightly coloured function keys that allowed shortcut commands for the built-in software. Why? To make it easy to use. That was the design brief from Mr Sugar himself (to the point where he wrote the introduction to the manual - so the story goes). And by and large, they did it. True, a younger user would struggle (where's the screen to tap away on?), but within ten minutes of switching the NC100 on, I'd figured out pretty much every menu and that was just by trial and error.

Everything that came in the box.

Build quality is fairly good. There is a bit of creaking if you really try and bend it but otherwise, it's a solid machine. Less hollow sounding than the Alphasmart 3000 I am typing this one and, dare I say it, a bit more durable. The manual is very detailed and handy for perusal but I get the feeling that new owners of the machine were meant to switch it on and get on with it.

The main menu - simplistic and clean

Although basic, the screen does its job well

The screen is basic, very basic, with 80 characters per row and 8 rows visible on-screen. it's not going to win any beauty contests and the text is rather small, but it does the job, unless it's dark. No back-lighting here but that helps with the battery live immensely. The follow up NC200 offered a half-clam-shell design with a built-in 3.5 inch floppy drive and a bigger, back-lit screen. You also got a spreadsheet, database and some games. The downside here was the move to C-cell batteries and the inability for the device to access the floppy drive if the batteries were even slightly below a full charge.

Organiser applications.

Calculator.

What the NC100 does benefit from is the keyboard. It clacks reassuringly like a typewriter, it's not overly loud but the sound is pleasing and not overly plasticky like most modern keyboards. The keys have a good amount of travel and spring back with just the right amount of tension. Honestly, this is the best non-desktop keyboard I have ever experienced for its size. Sitting down and bashing out a couple of hundred words was effortless and rather enjoyable and the only fault I can mention with the design is the slightly iffy angle of the screen which made viewing it a little bit of a chore. Other than that, the NC100 is superbly designed.

This brings me to the major issue with using it today. Whatever I type on the machine is held in battery backed up RAM. Finding 1Mb or smaller PCMCIA cards has proved a tad difficult and where I have found one, the prices being asked are eye-watering. There is the option of a serial cable so that will probably be my preferred method of transfer, but that may take some playing about with terminal programs and the like. Sadly, the NC100 pre-dates plug and play (even the hated Windows 95 idea of P&P) and lacks the easy transfer option of the Alphasmart. If only there were a way of combining the keyboard of the NC100 with the slightly more modern tech of the Alphasmart...

In a way, it's a shame. the concept is sound, the tech is good enough and the implementation excellent for its time. Yet, because of its age, it's not easy to use today. However, there are workarounds and with a bit of care and effort, I can see the NC100 lasting a good few years yet. What would be really good is if instead of going down the big-business data collection route of Google with their Chromebooks, or the bloated and relatively poorly performing budget Windows laptops or even the tablet/keyboard hybrids that are neither fish nor fowl, someone put together a low cost typing device that follows the mould of the NC100/Alphasmart/Z88? Think about it, a decent low power screen (doesn't have to be colour - in fact it shouldn't be to preserve battery life), in an A4 format with an ARM chip, a couple of GB of storage and the ability to run off either removable lithium-ion batteries or AA's. Using a basic operating system with applications saving in modern file formats, I think there could be a market for this device. Less fragile and cheaper than laptops, a better typing experience than tablets, what's not to like?

It won't happen, not least when you have the likes of the Astrohaus Traveller which offers something similar but in a clamshell format and a price that's just scary ($238 when the Indiegogo campaign launched, $349 (£270-ish) now - though comparing to the inflation adjusted price of the NC100, that's not too bad). It also doesn't help that if such a mythical machine were available, it would need to retail for $150 or less, and that would have to make it a relatively high volume, low margin product and I don't think the volume would be there, not compared to Chromebooks and tablets. Of course, it would be a niche product and by its very nature, lack the "perceived" value competitors offer.
As for me, I'll keep using  the Alphasmart and, when I have the cabling, the NC100. They are specifically focused machines with cracking battery lives and decent (in the case of the NC100, brilliant) keyboards. For simple text entry, nothing comes close. Sometimes, it's true, they just don't make them like they used to.

Interest or Hobby?

Part of the joys of work is that you interact with people of different ages and this can lead to some interesting conversations. I got talking to a gentleman who is a few years younger than myself who has an interest in videogames. Aha, I thought, this could be enlightening. It was, but not necessarily in a good way. You see, whilst he has fifteen years of console and PC gaming to his name, he has very little awareness of the history of his chosen hobby and, more importantly, no interest at all in expanding his knowledge. His is a transitory hobby, whatever new thing is in front of him is either great or shit. There are no levels in between these two extremes, just a binary yay or nay. So me being me, I raised this question: "Is this a hobby or an interest that you have?"

Now we each have our own approach to our hobbies. Indeed, how we approach a hobby defines that hobby's appeal to us (so the history and design of console hardware is of particular interest to me as an off-shoot to actually gaming itself). In the case of this younger gentleman, his was almost proud announcement that he knew nothing of gaming before he started playing back in the early 2000's and had no interest in what had happened before then, even to the point of not playing games that were released on his first console before he started gaming. I wasn't particularly surprised but it was quite saddening to hear.

The gentleman's first console was the Sony Playstation 2. A fine piece of hardware that hosted some of the best games of its generation, but my colleague expressed a narrow minded view that other console hardware released around that time (the sublime Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo's under-appreciated GameCube and the ground breaking original Microsoft X-Box) didn't matter because the PS2 won the sales war and as the other three lost, they didn't matter. As he wanted the best (in popularity at least), all other alternatives were discarded. Once the PS2 was replaced by the PS3, the older hardware was discarded and the games collection sold on. They were now old and of no further use. The latest was now, in his mind, the greatest.

A classic of its time.

Horses for courses I suppose, but then I have always been a collector (or hoarder as my better half would have it). Since the last house move, I have sold on most of my collection due to space issues but I did keep a few titles that have never been replicated since their original release. For example, Sky Odyssey for the PS2. The aim of the game is to pilot your aircraft successfully from A to B, encountering various obstacles and challenges along the way. There is no shooting, no whizz bang explosions, just pure flying. This title was in some way a slightly more realistic spiritual successor to the "Pilotwings" series that had releases on the Nintendo SNES (1990), the Nintendo 64 (1996) consoles. That such titles are few and far between demonstrates their sheer niche appeal and since then, only the lightweight Pilotwings Resort, released for the Nintendo 3DS (2011) has offered anything similar in the flying genre. I know Pilotwings Resort is lightweight by the fact that I have played both of its predecessors. Sky Odyssey, by the way, is still a great experience today and well worth a try if you can pick up a copy and have the hardware to play it on.

But what really made me think was how shallow my young colleagues approach to his hobby was. I struggled to bring together the two ideas of loving a hobby but having no knowledge or interest in anything outside of your own sphere of experience. In fact, he wouldn't countenance any move to expand that knowledge - it's old and therefore it's shit. That attitude, it must be said, is not just limited to videogames. Wargaming also has a similar issue.

Now, to be fair, I am not going to be tarring everybody with this brush, but lack of knowledge seems to be a badge of pride, and not just for the younger generation. Without a depth of knowledge in your hobby, how do you put what is current market offering into perspective? How can you judge any perceived improvements when you have no background on the subject you are purported to enjoy? That was evident when, at a show a couple of years back, one guy wanted fighting camels for his forces. When told they weren't used for that during the period he was fighting, he replied "It doesn't matter, you can still put them on the table." Historical wargaming indeed!

Back to my colleague. As gaming to him doesn't exist prior to 2002, he has never, and proudly claims will never, play classics like Command and Conquer, any LucasArts point and click adventure, Super Mario 64, Goldeneye, Resident Evil, Half Life and countless other titles because they don't matter. Yet without those titles, we wouldn't have the games we have today. True, time has not been kind to most of these, but some have aged well and to miss out on those today, if you are a gamer, is a crying shame.

From a wargaming perspective, I'll use Team Yankee. I like them for what they are (and the chance to tinker with them at will adds some of the depth that a hobby needs), but subjectively, how different is the core mechanism from Operation Warboard? Or Featherstone's rules? Not much, but because TY has shiny hard-backed rule sets with lots of pictures, they are perceived by quite a few gamers as better - and that is a conversation I had at the Durham show this year where I ran a demo game. It also revealed that most of the people who asked questions about my amendments (which were based on my reading of texts both modern and contemporaneous) had taken what was offered in the rule sets as sufficient knowledge of the period - further reading was something that seemed like an anathema to them. Woe betide anyone (i.e. me) to use actual knowledge to dis-abuse them of their ignorance. Hey ho.

Take your pick...

Personally, I don't follow the "newer is better" mindset - after all, I am typing this on an 18-year old Alphasmart 3000. Yes, there are new niche text entry products (looking at you, Astrohaus) but I'm not willing to spend a few hundred quid on something when a more convenient (and cheaper) option exists. The same can be said for wargames rules - our recent attempts at playing Charge (I picked up a re-print at Salute this year for my own perusal after the first kicking I received) and other older rule sets have been interesting. They don't have lots of pictures or specialised kit, but they do the job and (this is important) they follow the historical period they model. Certainly compared to some more modern rules (Black Powder, Pikeman's Lament and others), the older set's adherence to history is refreshing, possibly demonstrating how far the modern wargaming market has lost its way from historical knowledge and focuses on rolling lots and lots of dice.

It does make me wonder if we are moving to a point where the history and context of any particular hobby no longer matters to the individuals partaking in that hobby. Whilst people may demonstrate a breadth of knowledge, there is so little depth that the individual misses out on the richness that makes a hobby enjoyable. Without that depth, could the hobby be classed as such at all? Is it not just then a passing interest? Also, without context, how do you judge whether the latest rule set/game/whatever is an improvement on what came before or just a money making enterprise by the creator and will it enrich your enjoyment of your hobby? As far as hobbies go, surely this is a bad thing? 

The Emperor's New Clothes

With a couple of recent posts focusing on old tech that still has its uses, a couple of modern day pieces of tech were mentioned and this got me thinking about the usefulness of technology.
Hold on, I hear you say, aren't you a tekkie (techie)??? Well, yes, I am, but I must qualify that as well as assuring you that my sabots are heading nowhere near complex machinery!
Technology, for me, needs to be useful. Useful and what I consider a reasonable price. Whilst I understand that is a very subjective issue, hear me out. We all have our limits as to what we would spend on hobbies and interests, be it little metal figures (looking at you, Empress Miniatures!) videogames (GAME mostly) or food (sorry, M&S, you sell some good stuff but the prices are a tad excessive sometimes). With tech, the usefulness of any device is something I always measure against the cost and that forms part of the decision as to whether I buy said device.
Now, my recent purchases of the AlphaSmart and HP 360LX were not overly expensive, £40 at most each, and both devices have proved useful and, perhaps, surprisingly usable given their age. In the comments for those posts, two modern tech pieces of tech were mentioned which I think deserve further comment as to their usefulness and whether tech is being offered for the sake of tech...

The Astrohaus Freewrite is a modern day electronic typewriter. A solid metal casing, proper Cherry MX keyboard (clicky keys with spring based mechanisms which give superb feedback and make typing far more comfortable), a decent e-ink display, the Freewrite does exactly what it sets out to be: a modern day portable typewriter that is electronic. Initially, this was to be called the Hemmingwrite after Hemmingway as the device does not really do editing. You are meant to type first and edit later, just as Hemmingway was wont to do. Reviews of the Freewrite range from it being good to being pointless and I tend to feel the latter is more my line, even though I do, in general, like the idea. However, it fails in three areas which are as follows:

• Portability - the Freewrite is quite hefty, as befits a portable typewriter, but this means that it could be a pain to carry. It also needs a case to protect the keyboard and screen, one which Astrohaus will sell you for £23 or thereabouts. In addition, as the keyboard uses the excellent Cherry MX type keys, these are loud. Having seen a video of them being used, I can't help but think that if I was is a cafe or library next to a Freewrite user, I'd probably ask them to stop. They have thought of this, and a dampening kit can be had for another £12!
• File transfer - any portable device needs a way of transferring what you have typed into your main word processor/text editor and the easier, the better. AlphaSmart's method is pure simplicity. The 360LX requires a bit more effort but not much. The Freewrite uses two methods: wi-fi transfer via a secure third party solution, sending your files via Postbox to cloud services from Google Drive, Evernote or DropBox. You can, as the FAQ says, send your files clumsily directly via USB but cloud services are the way to go. In a word, NO! What happens if the cloud service you use ceases operation? What happens if Astrohaus cease trading? What security do you have via Postbox? Yes, I have used Google Drive and DropBox before but as a long term solution, I still prefer a direct cable connection as both device and PC will be in the same room when said transfer is to occur.
• Cost - the biggie and something that is a huge elephant in the room. The Freewrite, at present, costs £383 plus shipping. £383! You can buy a decent little Windows laptop, a Chromebook (which is tied to Google services anyway) or a refurbished AlphaSmart (or ten!) for that. Someone described the Freewrite as a hipster typewriter and it was quite derogatory. This is just too much for what it does, even if it does it very well, there are many alternatives to this one use device.

As you can probably tell, the Freewrite is not something I will be buying. Yeah, it's a cool piece of tech and I can see how, for some people, this will be an object of desire, but this fails for me in use and cost, and that makes this tech for the sake of tech, especially when a bit of searching can get you something equally as useful for a fraction of the price.

Next up, the ReMarkable tablet. This is advertised as the paper tablet and aims to give you the best of a tablet with the each of note taking and drawing that can be easily transferred to your PC. Where does this fall down?
Well, pretty much everywhere. It's used is limited, to either a sketchpad, notepad or e-reader. According to the reviews, it does the first two rather well, the last one, not so good as you have to load the e-books yourself and forget using Amazon bought titles. Depending on how you source your texts, this will either be no problem or a deal breaker. The pen used by the tablet uses replaceable nibs as part of the design to give you that drawing/writing on paper feel. What happens when you run out of nibs and can't buy any more? Incidentally, spare nibs are available at £12 for 8. Wow! Then there is the cost (as always!) At present, until Tuesday I believe, you get free shipping and a free folio case, so just have to pay £579. £579!!! That is a lot of money for the limited uses this device offers. If you are in a niche that this caters for, have at it, but otherwise, this is definitely a case of tech for the sake of tech! Pen and paper beat this one and a decent scanner will sort out your PC transfers.

Lastly, a category of products that I have seen friends use and, to me, are pretty useless. I am talking about voice activated home assistants. Be it Amazon's Dot, Echo, Echo Plus or Echo Snow (see here for the range), Google's Home device or any of the countless alternatives, there has been a push during the last year for voice activated internet connected home devices that allow you to sit back and tell them what you want, be it switching the lights on, playing music, changing the volume of said music or whatever else they say you can do. Do I like them? No.
These devices are meant as a gateway to the services offered by the company whose device you have bought. Never mind the privacy and security concerns that raises (and there are many), what you have is a microphone connected to the corporate servers of organisations whose sole purpose is to get you to consume their services. That is the be all and end all.
You could argue that they are just their to make life easier, but having seen a friend use an Amazon Echo, I don't see the home automation point of it. By the time you have said "Alexa, do this", you could have tapped a remote control button to accomplish the same task or (heaven forbid), got off your arse and turned a dial yourself.
And this is the thing with voice control. If any of you have ever watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, you'll know that the "Computer" is activated by voice control. Revisiting some episodes, it becomes rapidly clear that the voice control they have is limited (programmes are called Riker 1, Data 3 - there is no complexity. Could you, in all honestly, pick a text file or view a picture from a folder on your computer by voice and get the right one? Would you even know the file name?). For me, voice control is one of those solutions that never had a problem to solve and that puts me off any kind of voice activated system. Even Siri is borderline useless as if you ask a question, mostly it will say this was what it found on the web and you have to unlock your phone and view a web page as per normal. All you have saved is some typing, and that is the start of laziness.

I am not a luddite, by any means, and I follow technology with interest, but there are technologies, devices, whatever, that fall into the category of tech for the sake of tech (or capitalist consumerism) and when that happens, I decide quickly that they are of no interest to me. That is not to say they are not of use to some, but personally, I think there is definitely a whiff of the Emperor's New Clothes about them.