Author Archives: cosi
Amstrad NC100: new horse in the stable
A few days ago I was given a wonderful birthday gift. NC100 is an A4-sheet-sized (exactly!) portable computer, intended for word processing. With its comfortable, full-sized keyboard and built-in Protext word processor (real word processor, which visualises formatting, justifies the … Continue reading
CompactFlash and the Lost Clusters
I experienced it twice. The PC suddenly refuses to write to Psion’s CF and shows turd in filenames. First time I was scared to death – I was afraid that all my data are lost, but when I inserted the … Continue reading
Software for Atari Portfolio
Thanks to its popularity back then, Portfolio experienced a flood of software for virtually all applications. However, when the hype had gone down, most of the dedicated websites started to disappear and some FTP archives have become inaccessible. Nowadays, a … Continue reading
What is a vintage palmtop good for?
“Don’t be kidding”, you say. A vintage palmtop is an ideal toy, a collector’s item, a nostalgic artifact. It’s also great for digging in its guts – say Atari Portfolio owners with electronic skills – just like ZX Spectrum. Ok, … Continue reading
Psion in the Shell
Writing about programming tools for the Psion I mentioned about running the scripts from the shell. It sounds natural for someone who lives in the world of a prompt and a flashing cursor, but (un)fortunately Psion’s philosophy denies the existence … Continue reading
Glucholazy Atari Party 2011
Last weekend the well-known demoscene party was held in Głuchołazy, Poland. Though it’s traditionally associated with “big” Atari systems like XL/XE, ST and Falcon, I think it’s worth mentioning, that a new Portfolio initiative was born this year. We already … Continue reading
Psionic programming, part 2
Go to part 1 First steps So you want to write programs. Ok, here are the first steps you should follow: 1. Sit down, take a deep breath and think, what kind of software you’d like to create. Should it … Continue reading
Programming graphics on Portfolio, part 2
Go to part 1 Portfolio’s display is controlled by a Hitachi HD61830 chip. As I previously said, this makes it incompatible with the PC and more difficult to program. However, the only way to use dynamic graphics in your programs … Continue reading
Psionic programming, part 1
From Organiser to Series 5: Programming tools It’s not so far from the truth, that Psion Company has set the standards for many modern portable computers. Their sophisticated, sometimes revolutionary solutions pioneered the development of palmtops. Unfortunately, one of the … Continue reading
Programming graphics on Portfolio, part 1
One of Atari Portfolio’s weak points is the graphics. Not only has Portfolio very modest graphics capabilites (what can be understood), but also is hardly compatible with PCs. I think this is why there were so few games written for … Continue reading