looking at buying a pocket PC / PDA

[Mike Stein]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Evan Koblentz via cctalk" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
To: "drlegendre ." <drlegendre at gmail.com>; "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com>; "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2017 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: looking at buying a pocket PC / PDA


>> Hey, TRS-80 M100 rocks! I've got several, and they all work perfectly to 
>> this day. Built by Kyocera, who isn't known for making junk.
> 
> I agree, just not with the nutty claim that real writers still use them 
> as modern tools. That was an urban legend with maybe some tiny grain of 
> truth 25 years ago.

Well, if you're defining 'writer' as "a professional full-time journalist" whose main concerns are deadlines, word counts, editors' demands etc. and who has to be connected to the Internet every second then you're probably correct when it comes to usage today, although I wouldn't be surprised if some do use an obsolete device for jotting down ideas and notes as the OP wants to do.

But I didn't say *professional* writers still use M100s. I said "some writers", and I think the folks who self-publish stories on the Internet, enter writing contests, contribute to the various on-line magazines etc. or just write for pleasure and entertainment of friends and family are every bit as much 'writers' as your elite group of 'real writers', and some of them do indeed prefer the M100 and its cousins to their modern laptops and desktops for its unique features.

As Bill Loguidice observed in a thread elsewhere about your opinionated post, "...there really is no true modern equivalent to what the M100 series can do", especially when equipped with modern multi-MB RAM and storage expansions, USB, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity options, multiple tools and programs instantly accessible from ROM etc., etc.

> "It was an urban legend in the 1990s that a handful of old farts in the entirely sportswriting industry (thousands of writers overall) may 
"still" be using their Model 100s."

How many in a 'handful'? Perhaps not many in the 90s but they were certainly popular with journalists in the 80s; a few years ago I chatted for a while with a British professional full-time motorsport journalist who did indeed use an M100 for composing and uploading, as did quite a few of his fellow journalists at the time. Wikipedia and Infoworld: 

"Tandy stated that the Model 100's sales "have only been moderate", and an InfoWorld columnist later claimed that "it was only journalists" who had been buying it. The system's popularity with journalists, however, probably helped Radio Shack improve the company's poor reputation with the press and in the industry."

A little before your time of course...

But despite (or because of) your use of rude words like 'nutty' and 'BS' you have provided a few chuckles for the folks in the user groups(s) who are or know writers who do in fact use M100s and similar devices.

They just may know more about who uses them today and for what than you presume to know..

m