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A $35 keyboard for children transformed me into a novelist
- ballenf 6y agoI believe we'll see a return to more single use devices. They won't supplant smartphones. For one, I've thought a lot about having two separate computers: one for writing code and a second for googling when I need help / slack / email / HN. And then keeping the two devices in physically separate places. I could accomplish this with software and accounts, but I know for myself it would be less effective.
- macspoofing 6y ago>I believe we'll see a return to more single use devices. I believe that too. I tried using my smart phone to take notes at trade-shows, and it just doesn't work well. I found having a little notebook + pen to be much faster than unlocking your phone, loading OneNote and writing down some notes.
- Loughla 6y ago>I found having a little notebook + pen to be much faster I actually took a cue from the disability world for this and use a neonotes notebook and smart pen. You get the little notebook for immediate writing, but you can digitize it later and transcribe it into text for editing. Immensely helpful tool. Just a god-send for those long technical conferences as well as day-to-day program meetings.
- torstenvl 6y agoBased on this comment I checked out their website... and holy crap is it awful. The "Description" is just a video, there's no explanation of the difference between the different pens, all the different kits are confusing, it just seems like a mess. Please tell me the experience of using the pen(s?) is better than the site?
- Loughla 6y agoAbsolutely, their website is simply garbage. Their niche in my world is use with disability services and accommodations in colleges. Notetakers will use their pens to take notes for folks who need that service, and then send the transcription to the student in question. They're nice because you can record the lecture to accompany notes for classes where the context of the notes is important (higher level math and english especially). You can then play-back the notes as they're written down along with the audio. Super handy for that. I started using one just to test it for our students. They're not getting mine back. It's nice because you can change the weight and color of the ink electronically, highlight, and record audio to go along with it. It uses bluetooth to your phone, where you can transcribe, add tags to filter and search, and generally organize your notes in a very short amount of time. You can edit your writing on the computer or on your phone, so you can remove sensitive notes for individual people and share the page with very little work. It automatically recognizes separate notebooks and organizes them appropriately. It can integrate to my calendar; that way calendar events are added automatically if I write them on the notebook paper. The same for contacts via e-mail or phone - it can automatically add them to your contacts if you write them down. You can e-mail several file types straight from the pen using an e-mail link on the physical paper (small picture of an envelope). It can automatically backup to several cloud providers as well. There are picture editing and video illustration options as well, but I am not familiar with them. They're pretty intuitive. My handwriting is garbage and it does a good job of learning what I'm writing based on the first few pages of transcription changes that I've made. I use mine for all meetings and notes in my day-to-day. It is invaluable for those of us with garbage memories. I assign my team tasks in different colors and send the .pdf page out when necessary. 100% their website is crap.
- gonzo41 6y agoI have that, I have a work laptop, that i dock into a displaylink set of screens to run my work dev environment. And then sitting on the desk next to me is my personal laptop. Totally different uses and the seperation is really important because i never worry about typing the wrong thing into the wrong context because the full size keyboard is attached to the work computer. It's worked really well for me for about 3 years now. And i hardly look at my phone.
- dividedbyzero 6y agoI do pretty much the same, but I have my phone sitting next to me with an external bluetooth keyboard. I'd use an iPad, but there's no Whatsapp for those currently.
- kinghtown 6y agoI made another comment here about owning one of these. Yeah, there is a really compelling idea in single use tech/computers, especially for creative use. AlphaSmart really is distraction free to an extreme and instant on, writing where you left off in like three seconds is amazing. Problem though is that this is a cottage industry at best and any new devices will be priced in the same range as a POS laptop.. so why buy it? $600 for a new Justwrite? That’s a little dear.
- Markoff 6y agoagreed, unless you need long battery life any old Thinkpad for 100-150$ will do same job
- tonyarkles 6y ago> And then keeping the two devices in physically separate places. I've recently gotten to experience this somewhat, although on a single machine. With the whole "no in-person meetings" thing, I've been working out at my cabin with LTE tethering as my only Internet connection. Since I've got a limited amount of bandwidth, I spend most of the time off-line. It seems like the (admittedly miniscule) activation energy to set up the tether connection is just enough to make me be thoughtful about when I'm connected to the Internet, and it's really refreshing to not have all the notifications popping up all the time.
- MH15 6y agoIf you use Windows, a similar experience can be attained by choosing the "taskbar where window is open" option in the "show taskbar buttons on:" setting of the Taskbar Settings window. this only shows the apps you have open on each monitor on that monitors taskbar. It provides me with a sense of using two separate computers, one for slack/email and one for code, while still having the convenience of copy and pasting between "computers".
- jseliger 6y agohttp://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I have a separate laptop on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web. (Irony of ironies, it's the computer Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on. When Steve and Alexis auctioned off their old laptops for charity, I bought them for the Y Combinator museum.) He added a note to the top, however, saying that he gave up on his method.
- beamatronic 6y agoThe keyboard in question is a 1993 AlphaSmart device
- adamiscool8 6y agoThe author is using a 2007 model from eBay, but it is cool to see the technology from my childhood classroom almost 30 years ago persist. I definitely wrote a few elementary essays on these in my day.
- macspoofing 6y agoMakes sense. Single-purposes devices are kind of cool. It's why eBook readers have a place in a world where tablets exist. I don't know about AlphaSmart though - the screen is too cramped. I suspect after the initial euphoria of finding another way to write wears off, the author will get tired of the limitations and go back to writing on a tablet or PC. Having said that, maybe there is a market for a writing-only device, similar to a read-only eBook reader.
- taborj 6y ago> maybe there is a market for a writing-only device, similar to a read-only eBook reader. The article mentions just such a device[0] [0] https://getfreewrite.com/collections/writing-tools https://getfreewrite.com/collections/writing-tools
- eropple 6y agoI've been using one for long-form writing for about a decade now. Haven't gotten tired of it yet.
- macspoofing 6y agoCool. I'm not a writer so I don't know what works and what doesn't. If it works for you and the author - great!
- eropple 6y agoSure. The other device I often use is a Thinkpad A20m running Linux. The only web browser on it is lynx (which I mostly use or Wikipedia).
- II2II 6y agoThe screen is not really relevant in this case since the point is to get words onto the page. It is to avoid procrastinating enabling distractions in this author's case, but I have also heard of authors turning off their monitor while writing to avoid premature editing. Other authors find archaic software most effective, while some use modern applications that are designed to display as much or as little information as they need. It seems as though writing is a highly individualized process.
- vikingcaffiene 6y agoMy partner is a novelist and owns two of these. She's been drafting with them for a little over a year and swears by them. She says the appeal is that you can't go back and read more than a few lines so you just kind of go and then edit later. I also think the appeal is the keys themselves. Similar in feel to an old Thinkpad.
- mhd 6y agoI wouldn't go as far, the typing feel isn't as good as old Thinkpads and the keys are definitely more fragile. Can't replace them, either. A device of the same form factor, even display, with an Arduino for tinkering and mechanical keys would be a godsend.
- retzkek 6y agoI use an Atreus [1] as my daily keyboard, and Phil has been experimenting with various forms of "cyberdeck" based on that [2,3]. Something like that, with a minimalist emacs config like [4] would be an awesome portable writing device. 1. https://atreus.technomancy.us/ https://atreus.technomancy.us/ 2. https://atreus.technomancy.us/decklog https://atreus.technomancy.us/decklog 3. https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/comments/d2rwp1/atreus_deck_mk4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/comments/d2rwp1/atreus_de... 4. https://github.com/rougier/elegant-emacs https://github.com/rougier/elegant-emacs
- benjohnson 6y agoThe Japanese have modern devices like this - this one is about $250 and had a E-ink display and a folding keyboard. You can put the keyboard in English mode - a few keys are in odd places but bearable. It's increased my output by several orders of magnitude. https://www.kingjim.co.jp/pomera/dm30/ https://www.kingjim.co.jp/pomera/dm30/
- boplicity 6y agoThat is exactly the type of device I've dreamed about for years. Thank you for pointing it out. I wonder if there is a version targeted more for English language.
- nwienert 6y agoAlso have wanted to find/build this since forever, though I’d like something simpler and sturdy.
- microcolonel 6y agoWow, ATOK is like $5 a month on its own, on PC. I'm impressed they went to that length to get a high quality input method into this device. Wonder how much trouble it would be for them to integrate RIME, I'd buy that in an instant.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoFor that price a NOS Brother Geobook would be competitive.
- inyorgroove 6y agoThere is also the Freewrite, its a little expensive but is targeted to English speakers: https://getfreewrite.com/ https://getfreewrite.com/
- double0jimb0 6y agoThe Cherry mechanical switches are big plus on the Freewrite. AlphaSmart uses membrane switches, a deal killer for some.
- falcor84 6y agoOn a related note, I've been imagining this product idea, as an educational toy that would help kids practice typing and spelling: A small physical keyboard with a small (but larger than the AlphaSmart's) attached color display, which does nothing but present a single picture of the thing that you've typed, and show nothing if the current input is misspelled or otherwise not found. I'm thinking that it would have an internal (no internet connection) visual dictionary similar to the one that comes with the Scribblenauts game and would be rugged enough for 3 year old kids to play with. Do you happen to know of any existing product like this, or the feasibility of building one?
- earlyriser 6y agoI toyed with the possibility of something like this, in my case I was thinking more in an app with a similar functionality. Maybe more oriented to simple phrases than single words.
- x87678r 6y agoHonestly every kid I know has a chromebook or at least access to a laptop. It was in their curriculum to learn to type and they picked it up quickly. There are a bunch of toy laptops for toddlers too. I dont think there is any space inbetween.
- falcor84 6y ago> I dont think there is any space inbetween. I suppose my proposed target audience is 3-5 year olds. Do you think there wouldn't be enough interest?
- mosselman 6y agoHow safe is your text on this? What if this thing breaks or has some glitch? Is there some form of cloud backup? I'd be terrified of losing data to this thing.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoIf you read the article, you’ll learn the only method of getting data off the device is via usb connection to a host computer.
- mosselman 6y agoYou caught me, I didn't read the whole thing.
- stu2b50 6y agoNope, if it breaks, it's lost. However, I don't really think that's a practical issue. The workflow is going to be one where you write in chunks, and then copy over to your computer. After all, part of the appeal is that you can't edit anything beyond what you're currently typing right now, like a typewriter. However, you still need to edit eventually, and that naturally forces you to move data occasionally to your computer. And even if it does break, you probably remember what you wrote enough to recreate it anyway. If you're writing hundreds of pages at a time, it's probably a mess anyway.
- Shared404 6y agoIt seems like if you transfer over your work after every writing session it shouldn't be a serious issue.
- falcolas 6y agoBased on the article, it's simple enough to just use your computer to back up the text. They seem to adopt a flow of "write for 30-60 minutes, upload to a computer". It also seems stupid-simple enough that losing data will require a pretty major event (i.e. more than just a power loss).
- vorpalhex 6y agoI still remember as a child playing on a 1980s word processor that my mom had. It had maybe a 4 line display, with an ugly greenish backlighting and no battery whatsoever. It did however have a hinge mechanism so that little text only screen would fold over the keyboard.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoThese dedicated word processor devices were quite popular and cheap. Built-in printer and floppy drive, shaped somewhat like a typewriter. We had two in my house, even though we also had general purpose computers. I think they were still in use into the early 90s for school reports.
- arnado 6y agoIt reminds me of the TRS-80 model 100. I seem to remember reading a story linked here a while back regarding the 100 and how popular it was for journalists to write stories on, and maybe be uploaded via modem to the editor when completed? (I might be remembering this incorrectly)
- walrus01 6y agoThe common setup that I've seen photos of consisted of a model 100 and an acoustic coupler set sized to fit a north american standard payphone handset. Typically a 300 baud modem to dial in to a special system operated by wire services and large newspapers and file the plaintext of the story. ignore the cellphone part here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQqWHLZjOjA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQqWHLZjOjA
- fanf2 6y agoYou are thinking of this http://wayne.lorentz.me/This_TRS-80/ http://wayne.lorentz.me/This_TRS-80/
- arnado 6y agoyes, thank you. I'll have to read over it again and refresh my memory.
- gadders 6y agoWho's tried coding on one? Own up :-) You could bang out 500 lines of JS without stopping and then upload it to your PC and see if it runs...
- arexxbifs 6y agoSeems like any laptop booting a minimal Linux distro straight into a similarly simplistic text editor should be able to provide the same experience. Could be carried around on a USB stick, effectively turning any available computer into an AlphaSmart.
- billfruit 6y agoYes, but Alphasmart was self-contained, and had 100s of hours of battery life.
- bxparks 6y agoExcept for the part about "Three AA batteries power it for up to 700 hours". Not having to carry a power adapter nor worrying about battery life is really nice.
- zelos 6y agoDell used to include a minimal Arm/Linux system inside some of their laptops as an instant-on, long battery life option. No idea whether anyone actually bought them though.
- arexxbifs 6y agoGot any more info on this? Like what models? Sounds really interesting to me.
- 6y ago
- timurlenk 6y agoThese people have a somewhat modern alternative with mechanical keyboard and eink screen. It has wifi and that's it. From watching the reviews I understood that a major drawback is that no editing is possible on the device itself and it is very expensive (600$) https://getfreewrite.com/ https://getfreewrite.com/ I personally use occasionally an android based ebook reader with a bluetooth keyboard (Onyx BOOX Poke 2 with logitech k380). Distraction free writing is a thing.
- mprev 6y agoThis feels like the sort of thing people buy to kid themselves that the problem with their writing lies outside their own brains. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a dedicated writing device but, for me as someone who writes pretty much for the entire working day, inconvenience is the biggest bar to writing other than lack of sleep. If I can't edit on the device, or find the text in my usual GSuite/Office 365 spaces, then maybe I'd be better off with a $40 dictaphone and Rev.com.
- tonyarkles 6y ago> This feels like the sort of thing people buy to kid themselves that the problem with their writing lies outside their own brains. I posted elsewhere in this thread about this, so to summarize: I've been at a cabin using LTE tethering, and am consciously turning my Internet connection off and on. I fully realize that the problem is in my brain, but putting up just that tiny of a barrier is enough of an effective "hack" to change the way I work in a positive way. Because there's no connection most of the time I'm working, there's no HN, there's no email popping up, there's no Slack notifications, and there's no "falling down a rabbit hole searching for a solution". I'm spending way more time writing down/rubber ducking the problem I'm trying to solve and coming up with the solution myself (which generally results in a much better understanding of the problem)
- glassdimly 6y agoI have an kindle fire keyboard with bluetooth, writing in Jotterpad. I switched to the AlphaSmart NEO2 and it's far superior both in price, time-to-write, and lack of distractions for initial drafts. I chose it after being stalked by relentless $400 FreeWrite ads for months. My wife googled "freewrite alternatives." I have also used apps like "Concentrate" and all the other distraction-free apps. I have also considered minimal linux distros but realize that it's not going to be much better than my kindle fire. For editing, I would still use my kindle fire. I use a custom gulp-based build process from markdown files that I wrote which spits out manuscript format, and the NEO works fine with that. Of course it can only hold 9 scenes at once.
- dougmwne 6y agoI think this is a worthy read because it looks a computing product from a user's perspective instead of a engineer or an MBA. Multi-function everything devices with the addictive potential of nicotine may be engineering marvels and business rockstars, but this person wanted to write without distraction and needed to reach into the past to find a product that met their needs. And it's a fun exercise to take this user's need and whiteboard out a new product for them. How are those ergonomics; could we hinge the display or project it somehow in a way that will let them type longer without discomfort? How's that LCD's readability; would eink be better? Should the device be doing incremental backups to the cloud? Should it offer dictation?
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoShould the device be doing incremental backups to the cloud? I think one of the key features would be no network connection.
- naikrovek 6y agoSo a Linux machine (like an old laptop) booted into single-user mode seems like a good approach here. Single shell, single application at a time, no GUI.
- phone8675309 6y agoI have an old Linux laptop (an old iBook G4) that boots into a non graphical environment and starts emacs in text mode on login with no network connectivity by default. It's my go-to for focus.
- anythinggoesbay 6y agoThis is so good. Can you please share how it can be done?
- criddell 6y agoBut it won't run for 700 hours on 3 AA batteries.
- zelos 6y agoMy dad used a Tandy Dreamwriter for many years to write on while working as a travel journalist, well into the 2000's. Small, Z80 based, with a few lines of text on the screen and powered by AA batteries. Other journalists used to laugh at the 'old guy with the Fisher Price computer', but the instant-on and distraction free typing was a definite advantage. Pretty nice not having to worry about a fragile, expensive laptop while out in the jungle or whatever, too.
- mprev 6y agoOh cool. The Dreamwriter was based on the Amstrad NC100: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100 A very cool little device, at the time. I borrowed one as a kid and it seemed very exciting to be able to type things wherever I was. I'm kinda nostalgic for that less connected era, where life moved at a slightly slower pace. Like all nostalgia, I'm leaving out the bad parts.
- hombre_fatal 6y agoYou make the link unclickable when you format it as code.
- acomjean 6y agoIn the early 1990s I got to shoot some NCAA Div 1 basketball. Some reporters that showed up and worked from the press room often had these old TRS80 "Slab portables". They're hard to describe, but a 2 inch thick open-face notebook coputer, with a real keyboard and a small black and white screen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 Our students reporters had to take notes on paper. In the early 90s dedicated word processing machines seemed to be pretty popular and writing papers with small lcd screens was common.
- brudgers 6y agoHardware is a useful abstraction.
- depaulagu 6y agoPosting paywalled-articles in HN should be highly discouraged...
- lukifer 6y agohttps://outline.com/PzjuRt https://outline.com/PzjuRt
- hombre_fatal 6y agoNah, I don't only want to read the products of charity and advertising.
- jrockway 6y agoMedium has a very weird paywall where you are rewarded for clearing your tracking cookies after every visit. They strongly encourage you to sign in, and if you do, it will say "you're out of free articles". But if you sign out and clear cookies, you get to read the article for free. I guess this is better than "you don't have an account, no article for you!" but it still strikes me as odd.
- elchin 6y agoDigital minimalism!
- fooblat 6y agoAlthough the author mentions using outdated and unsupported software to transfer the text, it isn't actually required. These also have a mode where it just "types" the text into the program of your choice, via the usb cable. No drivers required and works with any OS that can recognize a usb keyboard.
- walrus01 6y agoThat thing looks kind of like a TRS-80 model 100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100
- lewisflude 6y agoFor the mechanical keyboard lovers out there, there is a Cherry MX compatible AlphaSmart 3000 PCB: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=91504.0 https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=91504.0
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dzuc 6y agosimilar devices https://www.are.na/laurel-schwulst/free-writing-devices https://www.are.na/laurel-schwulst/free-writing-devices
- ProZsolt 6y agoOutline link: https://outline.com/PzjuRt https://outline.com/PzjuRt
- hairofadog 6y agoAlong these lines I've been thinking a nice device would be an e-ink reader that _only_ loads Wikipedia. (You know, for kids!)
- toast0 6y agoYou might be interested in the WikiReader, but not actually. You could probably do a Wikipedia export to a good e-ink reader and disable networking and call it a day?
- Jaruzel 6y agoSimilar idea: https://youtu.be/R63x2TXm0s8 https://youtu.be/R63x2TXm0s8 It's a raspberry Pi, with an e-ink screen, and battery to provide an 'offline' repository of information, including Wikipedia.
- nl 6y agohttps://www.osnews.com/story/131180/the-alphasmart-dana-in-2019/ https://www.osnews.com/story/131180/the-alphasmart-dana-in-2... has a few more technical details of the device for those interested. It runs PalmOS!
- zelos 6y ago> I found a free text editor specifically written for the dana’s wide screen (SiEd, dana version) on SourceForge in alpha, and left abandoned 4 years ago. That editor will sometimes crash the whole system... Nice to know my crappy code is still causing problems all these years later.
- glassdimly 6y agoI use the Alphasmart, also. FYI, there's MacOs software for transferring the text that works great. It needed a PR and Xcode, so I bundled it into a dmg and am distributing it here: https://glassdimly.com/blog/tech/macos/alphasync-macos-catalina-download-and-install-appdmg https://glassdimly.com/blog/tech/macos/alphasync-macos-catal...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DanielleMolloy 6y agoThanks for the pointer. Do you use yours for prose or also for more technical (or even research) text?
- 5- 6y agotangentially related, i've been playing a bit with a brother ep-44 (see, e.g., https://darrengoossens.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/serial-terminal-with-benefits-brother-ep-44/ https://darrengoossens.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/serial-termi...). i've mostly been running it as a linux tty, but in spite of being designated a 'personal electronic printer', it has some memory and editing features so could pass as a portable word processor. unfortunately its keyboard is quite unsatisfactory, so i'm considering acquiring a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_700 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_700 also for use as a tty. i would be interested in further suggestions along these lines.
- DanielleMolloy 6y agoThe Psion series got some legendary status for its attention to detail. The Psion 5 had backlight, was running on batteries (25-35h battery life) and it has a slot for Compact Flash Cards. The keyboard is foldable. If you find an adapter for the CF cards they can still be used today for writing similarly to what is described here with the AlphaSmart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5
- julesallen 6y agoLoved that thing! Batteries lasted forever and the LCD was perfect for the job of being focused. My hands are almost too big to touch type on it so notes often needed editing when transferred to a desktop. Typing on it is kind of like writing with Graffiti on a Palm, it takes some practice and then all of a sudden you're pretty good at it. If you liked the Psion you might like its successor the Gemini from Planet Computers (https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/gemini-pda-1 https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/gemini-pda-1). Same awesome keyboard.
- DanielleMolloy 6y agoOh, I really fancied the Gemini. A tiny Linux computer the size of a Psion 5 sounded pretty awesome to me as a former Psion lover. I'm not unhappy that I did not buy it in the end though - battery life, and it comes with all the smart phone distractions - the Psion 5 used to be my distraction free writer, not a terminal access device. If you need to frequently do admin tasks (e.g. config file and script editing) it's still a pretty interesting choice.
- minikites 6y agoSometimes I wonder how often these "productivity tips" mask a deeper feeling of indifference or rejection of the task entirely. People spend hours finding the right tools for a task thinking it will make them want to do it instead of examining the task itself and their feelings around it.
- reidjs 6y agoTo a certain extent I agree. If you were really passionate about something like this you would make it happen regardless of your circumstances. Think about kids who grow up in impoverished island nations who make it to the MLB through sheer perseverance. The difference is unless you're already wealthy or talented, you _need_ to write effectively to compete in the modern 'white collar' workforce. Writing something that people want to read is very hard. People don't read for the sake of reading, they read to learn something or feel something. It can take years of consistent practice to evoke anger, sadness, or laughter through writing. Think about how many books, workshops, and college courses there are on writing itself. It is sort of like programming, it is a skill that anyone can learn given enough time and it has very little barrier to entry. This makes it extremely competitive, so a lot of people need to exploit whatever edge they can get.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoA very similar productivity trick, to having a separate 'office space' when working at home. Triggers the mind to enter work mode, and minimizes distractions.
- tartoran 6y agoOf course it does but for many the problem is affordability so I'll take it as a nice to have luxury.
- moonbug 6y agofor similar reasons, I swear by my Remarkable tablet.
- kinghtown 6y agoI own a neo2. They are nice for first drafts or noodling with words. There really is something in the idea of dumbing down tech to get things done. I have written quite a bit on it but three things have held me back from being a power user: 1. It uses a dated, proprietary cable to transfer your writing to a computer. Worst part of this is that the AlphaSmart re-types your writing so if you’ve written the 50000 word max then it will take some time to save it. The process is just annoying enough to trigger procrastination. 2. If the battery comes out then you’ve lost everything. This isn’t such a dealbreaker since I want a dumber word processor to get out of my way but I think it makes the keyboard a little too dumb. 3. Honestly, it’s not sexy. It’s huge, too. And people with no interest in writing just don’t get it at all. The looks people give me when I’ve used it in the public are like “what insane Jesus cult stuff is this guy writing on that??” Nothing crazy here, just hunting bugs on TempleOS. I see a market for a machine like this but done better. The just write or whatever branding they are using checks a lot of boxes but the price is insane. I think I’ll just rig up Atom to work a little bit more like Scrivener.
- Taylor_OD 6y agohttps://getfreewrite.com/ https://getfreewrite.com/ I remember something like this being announced a few years ago called The Hemingway. This is what I found when I DDG'ed The Hemingway typing machine.
- kinghtown 6y agoYeah these are the guys I was referring to when I wrote Just Write. Their prices are still insane. Plus are they ever going to release the traveller? I’m pretty sure it’s been listed as presale for 2 years now. My neo2 was $40 CDN with shipping. Paying like 20x that for something which is just a tad bit nicer is kind of wrong. You’ve either got to be a working novelist to justify the cost or like someone whose been sitting on the same handful of story premises for 20 years but never finished anything you know like I’m gonna throw down $700 on this thing because I’m actually really very serious this time about writing a book. No thanks. Laptop will do here.
- n2dasun 6y ago
- kalium-xyz 6y agoI wonder how you could modify one of these to be more suited for writing code.
- tartoran 6y agoUpgrade to a laptop, boot up into a stripped down verison of your OS
- kalium-xyz 6y agoNot what Im looking for, a laptop is both too overkill and to underkill on the battery life
- ceedan 6y agoMy first thought when looking at this thing was neck pain. Personally, I would be in rough shape if I used this thing for more than 15 minutes.
- kinghtown 6y agoI actually don’t look at the screen when I’m typing on mine. I’m like zoning out when I use it. I write my first drafts on my MacBook in a similar way where I turn the screen off and type away.
- ceedan 6y agoWow that's pretty cool insight to a writer's process. I'm not sure that ever would have occurred to me
- kinghtown 6y agoIf you’re thinking of trying it, I recommend having soft targets for scenes or chapters. Some kind of direction. Also it takes a bit of time for the engine to start running. At first it’s kind of weird and you’ll be prompting yourself with like “what’s next what’s next” anxiety but if you tough it out for about 15 minutes then the dream logic kicks in. All these cool things float up from the subconscious. Lots of typos,too.
- willmacdonald 6y agoSeems similar to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88 The Cambridge Computer Z88 is an A4-size, lightweight, portable Z80-based computer with a built-in combined word processing/spreadsheet/database application called PipeDream (functionally equivalent to a 1987 BBC Micro ROM called Acornsoft View Professional),[1] along with several other applications and utilities, such as a Z80-version of the BBC BASIC programming language.
- julesallen 6y agoI bought one of these new when they came out and it was life changing. The BASIC was surprisingly good and I got almost as much out of the spreadsheet as I did the word processor. One area that was a disappointment is really doesn't like x-ray machines (or maybe the other bits in the scanning process — magnets?). I asked for hand inspection at LHR, they refused, and putting it through the scanner corrupted what was stored in memory. Only upside is doing something again is usually quicker and better than the first time.
- larrywright 6y agoFor people wanting something like this, there are still plenty of Apple’s EMate devices available on EBay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300
- c22 6y agoI was given a first generation Alphasmart in middle school and told to use it for all my assignments since I had such terrible handwriting. At the time I thought it was incredibly cool, but in retrospect I wonder if I fell prey to some ill-thought technology in the classroom program. Perhaps it would have been better if they had just helped me fix my handwriting.
- bookmarkable 6y agoTired of links to paid content, pay walls, Admiral anti-ad blocks.
- pier25 6y agoGRR Martin still writes in DOS with WordStar: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27407502 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27407502
- nate 6y agoIt's wild what constraints can actually open up for your creativity. I love making videos but ran out of the time I used to have to spend on it. And so largely gave up trying. But I decided instead of complaining about it or trying to find more time to pile on some constraints: - only film AND edit on my phone - only create a movie as long as a single song track. don't edit the song track besides muting clips of the song. - only spend < 60 minutes on editing the video - publish daily So now there's little workflow pauses waiting for files to transfer. It's now impossible to spend too much time in a rat hole of an edit. Of course this limits things I'd love to achieve with it, but on the other side, I get to publish so many more ideas and feel insanely more creative with it. Feeling stuck? Probably need a good dose of giving yourself what seems like arbitrary and ridiculously limiting constraints.
- munificent 6y agoI've been getting into making electronic music and figuring out a workflow that balances these constraints is really challenging. The most powerful, expressive, flexible, and affordable way to make music, by far, is to do everything in a DAW inside a computer. Ableton + a few software synth plug-ins is a ridiculously powerful platform to make music in. You could produce albums for the rest of your life and never run out of inspiration. And the user interface for Ableton is just an absolute delight. But it's so powerful that it takes me forever to get anything done. It's easy to spend three hours tweaking reverb settings and never finish anything. The other approach is to do everything in dedicated hardware with real synthesizers. It's expensive to buy gear and a hassle to wire everything up. Decide that you want delay on your bass instead of the lead? That's five minutes of futzing with cables versus a single drag-and-drop in Ableton. Want two different reverb settings for the pad and the clap? Better shell out another $300 to buy a second reverb pedal. Undo? You're lucky if your sequencer supports it. But because the set of options is so much narrower and the cost for rethinking choices is higher, the hardware environment pushes you forward and makes you want to finish things. The tricky part is that, to a listener, the music made on hardware often just isn't as good in many ways as that made in a DAW. Listeners today are used to lots and lots of layers and very surgical production and mixing. That's easy (but time-consuming) in a DAW, but very difficult (and expensive) in hardware. Finding the right balance here is hard.
- rjack_ 6y agoI wonder if creating a different OS account on the same day-to-day work laptop with limited access to app, games and no internet would trigger the same "Pavlovian response" the article talks about. Did anyone tried this approach?
- jedimastert 6y agoI think folks here might enjoy the idea of cyberdecks reddit.com/r/cyberdecks
- dividedbyzero 6y agoAm I doing something wrong, or is that subreddit essentially empty? Also, aren't cyberdecks the complete opposite to these devices? They strike me as a multi-purpose device like any laptop, but in a different form factor and maybe a bit more optimized for hardware hacking?
- jedimastert 6y agoI linked to the wrong sub, there shouldn't be an s on the end I would say that cyberdecks can be whatever you want. I've seen some single-purpose form factors like network testing or radio telemetry before
- nanna 6y agoRequisite HN comment but also a genuine one too: Is there any chance any of these Freewrites, Alphasmarts or machines from Japan support, or could be hacked to support, emacs keybindings?
- numpad0 6y agoThere’s a guy who reflashed Pomera DM200 to run XEmacs, though at that point it’s just an ARM laptop with no mouse
- i_am_proteus 6y agoI use a Hermes Rocket (typewriter) for similar reasons: similar form factor, does not require electricity, saves your work to paper rather than electronic storage. About $50 used. The keyboard is mechanical, as is the rest of the device.
- nanna 6y agoAlphasmart HN thread from 2017 here, with comments by co-founder Ketan Kothari and Freewrite's founder too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836866
- framebit 6y agoThe Alphasmart! We did typing class with that back in the early 00's. The IR beam to the printer felt like science fiction back in the day.
- hugozap 6y agoTo maximize focus I've used the "One system user per project" trick. It works well because now everything in your desktop has to do with your project (files/notes/calendar/bookmarks/etc) I've been able to ship a few projects using this trick. Not sure who was (Maybe Seth Godin?) who recommended using a different computer, which may even work better.
- golem14 6y agoGiven the amount of work going into custom DIY mechanical keyboards, it's surprising that there aren't DIY solutions out there. All you need is a $5 MCU (think ESP32) and a cheap display. Would make a fun side project :)
- golem14 6y agoOne problem is that cheap LCD displays are not easy to source. E.g., the largest old school lcds I find are 4x20 characters, which is a bit confining. There seem to be tons of TFT options out there on the cheap, but they're probably not great in terms of eye strain and power consumption. If price is no object, then e-ink displays seem a great choice, e.g. $70 for a 7.5'' display: https://www.banggood.com/Waveshare-7_5-Inch-E-ink-Screen-Module-e-Paper-Display-SPI-Interface-For-Raspberry-Pi-p-1365278.html https://www.banggood.com/Waveshare-7_5-Inch-E-ink-Screen-Mod...
- fenwick67 6y agoMany of these larger epaper displays are meant for very low refresh speeds - I'm talking 5 seconds plus. This one takes 6 seconds.
- ericol 6y agoThis is a very vintage & romantic way of going at it. If you don't have a way to acquire one of these devices, a similar solution can be implemented with a Bluetooth keyboard (Like the Logitech K480,U$D 35 @ Amazon, and has a slot for tables or phones) and a tablet or your phone (Or _a_ phone). You'll need an app for that, and my current choice for writing in my tablet is Joplin [1] that has apps for all the OSes and phones, and can be hooked with different ways of cloud storing for your files (Like Dropbox or NextCloud) [1] https://joplinapp.org/ https://joplinapp.org/
- frank2 6y agoYou missed the main point of the OP: the AlphaSmart lacks the distractions (temptations to procrastinate) of a smartphone or tablet. Do you never find yourself using your smartphone or tablet to procrastinate after intending to use it for a productive purpose?
- ericol 6y agoYes. That's actually why my tablet (That I use mainly for reading) doesn't have my main Gmail account linked to it, plus I always use it on airplane model. My take was that not that many people will have the choice to get their hand on one of these devices (I, for one, can't).
- JoblessWonder 6y agoI have a very special place in my heart for the AlphaSmart brand. When I was a kid in the 90's I had atrocious handwriting. No one could figure out why or how to fix it. In middle school, one of the counselors had been given an earlier model of the AlphaSmart as a demo unit and let me use it. It also turned me into a writer. Instead of my teachers glossing over my chicken scratch, they were able to read my typed assignments and offer me real feedback. My confidence as a student and an intellectual returned. All because I had a little keyboard to type on. Pretty crazy. [Technical side note: Back in the day, to transfer what you typed you used to plug it into the PS/2 keyboard port on a computer and press "send." It would then recreate each keystroke for the computer, regardless of what program you had open so if you hit send before opening up a word processor it would be chaos until it finished transferring.]
- falcrist 6y agoThat side-note is really interesting, actually. They found a way to bypass all the hassle of trying to deal with compatibility issues with different computers (at least with the PC clones... Apple used a different port) and applications by using a near-universal port. No need for a file system or networking to transfer your files to the target PC. Just plug it into the keyboard port, and send your text directly into whatever program you want. How does the saying go? "If it looks stupid but it works, it ain't stupid."
- JoblessWonder 6y agoThey had a dongle which had the Mac plug as well! It really was a very simple/elegant solution in a time before Plug and Play/USB/etc. They even included a "Y" cable so you could keep your keyboard plugged in if you used the same computer to transfer to. This is what it looked like: https://www.theultracomputer.com/images/20190118_032444.jpg https://www.theultracomputer.com/images/20190118_032444.jpg
- falcrist 6y agoNow that's just an elegant solution.
- klodolph 6y agoWe had these in school when I was young. I loved them. I could carry one around the playground and write a story. When you got back to the classroom, you transferred it to the computer by hooking it up as a keyboard. I’ve been dreaming about getting one for a while. The passive matrix LCD works well in sunlight and the batteries last a long time.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoReminds me of the Radio Shack portable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 There were also a few simple word processors by Brother I think.
- brettermeier 6y agoWhy use medium.com with this login-wall?
- pier25 6y agoProbably because it's free and easy.
- gohwell 6y agoAre there any OS projects that would turn a computer into a word processor like this? Seems like a nice way to bring an old laptop back to life.
- gohwell 6y agoAnswering my own question: https://raymii.org/s/blog/Vim_as_PID_1_Boot_to_Vim.html https://raymii.org/s/blog/Vim_as_PID_1_Boot_to_Vim.html
- Wistar 6y agoIn the very late 80s, a co-worker of mine, a corporate-productions scriptwriter, gave up his Mac and started using a Neo2-like device -- it looked very similar and used AA batteries. I remember him crowing about how it was a game-changer for him, and that it made him a much more productive, and better, writer. I also recall thinking he was nuts.
- hamilyon2 6y agoSerious question: does anyone writing professionally or as a hobby use voice input as main input device? Why?
- tartoran 6y agoThis is interesting but I wonder whether no fewer and fewer folks remembers the pleasure of writing by hand with a nice fountain pen in a nice notebook. Not being able to edit also forces one into a different writing mode.
- goda90 6y agoI've never had good handwriting, and I find the process makes my hand tired pretty quickly, so for me there is nothing to remember.
- tartoran 6y agoI hear you but this is true of typing on a keyboard for some:RSI. Last time I was doing a lot of hand writing was in college and my writing has gotten way worse since because of lack of practice. But, I remember not having to think much about writing, my hand had a brain of its own.
- grayclhn 6y agoThat device looks fantastic for what the author wants. Another approach if you need a little more flexibility in the software might be using a deliberately limited old laptop. (I'd rather type in emacs, for example.) Battery life would be a lot worse, obviously.
- paulcarroty 6y agoI use Amazon Basics keyboard ($13), super comfortable for coding. Bought it just for fun after reading this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20866319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20866319
- geocrasher 6y agoI am not a novelist. The problem isn't the device, it's my brain. But when I have a creative block, I take a page from the novelists that just works. I close my eyes and start typing. In fact, Iv'e closed my eyes just now as I write this. Touch typing obviously helps! But it allows me to hyper-focus on my writing and not on anything else. If I wanted to, I could turn off all notifications. or just turn my sound off completely with "mute". No big deal. Granted, this isn't very portable, but I could do this with my laptop. The only thing I lack is the huge battery life. As I open my eyes now, I re-emerge into the Real World where there exists more than my writing. I fix the typos, make an observation, and click "add comment". But not before I add one more thing: You don't need a device to write. You need a process, and you need to get out of your own head.
- afandian 6y agoI've recently bought a handful of these (the more basic Pro and 2000), with the aim of replacing the insides with an ESP32, but otherwise do the same job. There's a community of people, weirdly on Flickr, who provided enough motivation to buy one. https://www.flickr.com/groups/alphasmart/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/alphasmart/
- baronblackmore 6y agoOne of my writer friends accomplishes a similar workflow by just having a writing account on his laptop, where everything is disabled except a text editor.
- pkamb 6y agoThinkPad X40 is the perfect machine for this. I’d love to see a dedicated disro with only writing + simple local and/or network backup.
- fortran77 6y agoThis reminds me of the Tandy 100, which was widely used by news reporters even into the early 80s.
- ngcc_hk 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100