The Specter Of Technology Bloat:
I keep technology on a short leash. I don’t suffer. I enjoy electricity, modern medicine, and refrigerated beer. I simply choose to avoid “improvements” with excessive drawbacks that sometimes get overlooked.
Word Processing Is Prone To Bloat:
Word processing long ago passed the “bullshit accretion event horizon”. Remember this asshole:
Kill it with fire!
Ignorant shitheads slathered their word processor with too much technology. It unleashed the abomination that is Clippy. Marketing told them to add more but they’d already added enough. The result infuriated everyone.
This isn’t a new thing. Clippy was from 1996. I still have similar complaints about word processing software. I occasionally use “advanced” features but 99% of what most of us do could be done easily with word processing software of the 1980’s or 1990’s.
The “Paperless Typewriter” / Word Processing Keyboards:
Suppose you want to type text and do nothing else? Your whole computer conspires against you. It has drawbacks we hardly notice. Ever try to compose simple text and waste an hour surfing? Maybe you futzed with printer settings, read 53 pointless e-mails, or hosed up the margins? You need a complicated boot up and login procedure even if you’re just typing text. Why? Because shut up that’s why! Your computer’s horsepower is trying to make itself useful but you don’t need it to type.
One solution is hardware that does basic word processing and nothing else. Such a tool is the Alphasmart Dana. Five years ago I bought one. I mentioned it here.
It’s not for everyone. There are pros and cons to a thing that doesn’t do jack shit but type. It’s not a laptop. It’s not a full fledged word processor. I won’t do Facebook. It’s weird. It looks like a toy. It creeps people out; people cling to their iPads and spill their frappuccino when they see it.
You’ve been warned. This is the word processor of someone who’s writing text. It’s not as clumsy or random as an office suite. An elegant option… for a more civilized age.
My Dana. Pictured with another tool of similar complexity, reliability, and utility.
Am I a freak for using an already obsolete $30 children’s toy instead of a laptop? Of course. But it works. It may work for you too… freak.
What have I learned after owning the device for 5 years? Well, it’s still just as damn good at its single purpose as it ever was. It will continue that way probably forever. Batteries (for practical purposes) last forever (and you can use AAs!). Boot up is instantaneous. Shut down is instantaneous. The keyboard “feel” is excellent. It’s dirt simple to operate. (I highly recommend it for technologically averse people like your 90 year old Grandma.) It’s nearly indestructible. Mine shows no sign of wear. It’ll keep working during the zombie apocalypse.
No matter how sophisticated your car gets, there’s still a time when the right tool is a $2 screwdriver. Computers missed this lesson.
Remember, there are drawbacks. This isn’t keeping up with Joneses. The screen is not huge and its not color. The touchscreen is superfluous. Screen position isn’t as ergonomic as a laptop.
It’s only for the rough draft. It’s simple but funky to dump text into a “real” computer. Do your editing/formatting there. Only generate text on this cheap little piece of shit; save the final stages for a laptop. Remember that nobody can tell the difference in a word typed on a $30 Dana and a $1,500 gaming powerhouse.
Did I mention that people notice it; a few are impressed but others assume you’re an imbecile.
It occurred to me these things were obsolete years ago. What if mine broke? Being properly paranoid, I decided to buy “a spare”. (They’re that cheap!) In case you’re interested in owning a a dedicated word processor I’m putting the links below.
Remember, this is not a laptop, don’t buy it expecting something it is not. Enjoy its bare-bones simplicity and remember you’re paying well under $50.
Alphasmart Dana: Right now I own an Alphasmart Dana. (They were discontinued a few years ago so you’ll have to buy used. Don’t be afraid, they’re cheap and tough. Caveat emptor but you’re not buying a Faberge Egg so your odds are good.) The image is a link and a used one will cost a little over $35. I love mine but you can’t have it. Buy your own.
This is an Alphasmart Dana. It runs the Palm OS.
Alphasmart Neo2: For my “backup” I decided to buy an Alphasmart Neo2. I’ve already placed my order. There are several sellers; pick one. (Be aware that one guy is selling Neo2’s for $25 with “numbers written on the face”. It was probably marked up by a school administator. This should have no impact whatsoever but I was vain enough to pay a few bucks more for an unblemished one.) Like all Alphasmarts, the Neo2 is discontinued. It’s modestly less sophisticated than the Dana. Apparently it lacks the Palm OS. Having seen the Dana in action I see no advantage to Palm. A Neo2 will cost just a few bucks more than the Dana.
This is an Alphasmart Neo2. It’s like a Dana without Palm and the touchscreen. I just ordered one.
The epic hipsterific Freewrite: Both devices I’ve bought are used, discontinued, and formerly circulated to schoolchildren. They’re just like me, uncool. Is there something similar that’s slightly less… old? Yes there is! It’s called the Freewrite and it just hit the market.
Impractical? Perhaps but it’s cool. (Sorta’.) It appears solid as a brick shithouse and I love e-ink. Sadly, it’s too expensive.
It has advantages over the Alphasmarts. It’s new. It has e-ink display that’s a bit larger. It has automatic wifi/cloud backup. It has flipper paddles to switch between folders and turn the wifi on/off. FLIPPER PADDLES! Be still my beating heart! It’s a little bigger than the Alphasmarts (which I see as an advantage) and the internals are said to be made of metal parts meant to last forever. Some folks get “into” keyboards (I do) and this keyboard is probably the best you’ll find. (The Alphasmarts are good keyboards too but slightly less awesome.) There is a kerfluffle about the lack of arrow keys, if you’re thinking of buying one read up on that first.
Now for that bad part. It costs $530. Let me repeat that because it about caused organ failure; the groovy Freewrite which is cooler than a Alphasmart but still a limited device, costs fifteen times more. What. The. Fuck!?!
If money were no object I’d get a Freewrite ’cause I think it looks cool and I like cloud synch. But it’s not fifteen times better than an Alphasmart NEO2 (that’s very close to the same thing). I can’t see where Freewrite is going with this. Either it’s going to drop in price with time or go extinct. Makes the cheap old toys I suggest seem like a lottery win eh?
A.C.
P.S. I’m aware of a zillion different word processors that are better than the abomination called MS Word. I use several and many are good. But that’s a different topic for another day.
P.S. Neo to Freewrite to comparisons abound. One, where the Freewrite took a beating, is here.
There are several head to head reviews of the $35 Neo2 versus the $500+ Freewrite. Here’s the one that had this image.
I like the way you roll. Like the guy who hacked a $50 Speak ‘n Spell into a vocal synthesizer (they cost thousands and both we’ve had are crap).
“An elegant option… for a more civilized age.” I’ve been told to respond with “Yes, Obi-Wan”. I have no idea what that is about.
It’s always good to tinker. I experimented with the Raspberry Pi last year. It worked OK but didn’t quite do what I wanted.
As for elegance; do not fight the force… just go with it.
Oh, and although normal sane people loathe Clippy, I work with someone who lurved him. Sigh. The dog sucked, too.
It takes all kinds. Nothing is so bad it’s 100% universally loathed.
Never met a Clippy fan but I’ve met one person who loved their Chrysler K Car (they say there are humans who liked the AMC Gremlin but I’ve never proven that).
I generally use emacs on a Solaris (UNIX) box. I works for me.
Thanks! Was waiting for this post to reply. How exactly do you transfer your files from the dana onto a computer to print/email/etc? USB?
1. Use a USB cable to plug your Dana (or Neo) into your computer. (I’ve only owned a Dana but I’m pretty sure the Neo is the same. Every time I say “Dana” it applies to both.)
2. Your computer will recognize it as a keyboard. (You can also use a Dana as a keyboard whenever you want, that’s a secondary feature.) (If you’ve got a rechargeable battery in your Dana it’ll start charging too.)
3. Open up a word processor / e-mail client / text editor or whatever on your laptop/desktop. Position the cursor in a document.
4. On the Dana press a key that says “send”.
The text will flow into the document as if you were typing it very fast.It might take a half a minute or so (longer if you your document is very large). You’ll see the words appearing on the computer. Don’t interrupt this process by trying to browse or multitask; the Dana is dumb and will spew the text into whatever window is current.
After the text is done edit it on your computer.
There are several other methods but they’re tinkery and annoying. This method will work with virtually any computer any time running any software.
Holy. Crap. I want one now. That sounds awesome.
My work here is done. 🙂
Does the Dana use a paragraph like a word processor, i.e. wrap text when you keep typing, and carriage returns specify a new paragraph, or does it insert CRs at the end of every line?
If it does the latter, that’s a deal-breaker for me. Otherwise I like the notion.
It does word wrapping like a regular word processor. The paragraph is just a string of text. It won’t insert a hard carriage return every line… man that would suck!
In the Dana’s word processing software (AlphaWord?) you can set font sizes. Choose whatever looks best to you on the tiny LCD screen. It will still send clean text to the computer when you “send” it to your computer. Experiment a bit and you’ll see what I mean.
Thanks! I will definitely look into it. I wrote my first published magazine article in Notepad on an obsolete 486 laptop, and I still prefer a simple Notepad-like app to a word processor for the creative (non-page-layup) part of writing.
If you could deal with Notepad you may be very happy with a Dana/Neo. I like mine, though I use it as an addition to and not a replacement for, a regular computer & word processing software.
The good part is they’re cheap. If you buy one and don’t like it, it’s not like you blew $500 on a new laptop.
It arrived! I ordered it a little before 1:00 am on New Year’s eve and went for “cheapest possible delivery”. Yet it arrived the morning of January 3rd, in a blizzard. When it’s a holiday/blizzard I figure all bets are off but civilization happened anyway. I’m impressed!
As for the device; it took 10 seconds to rip it out of the package and 2 seconds to “boot up”. It was shipped with fresh AA’s (which I’m told will last a year or so.) Perfect.