Psion MC600 troubles
====================

I decided to use my Psion MC600 for some traveling. I have two of these beasts:
one which is in almost perfect condition and which is used exclusively at home
(I do not want to damage it) and the other whis is not so OK (some damages on
display and so) and thus it can be used outside the home.

If you don't know what it is: the Psion MC600 is a laptop-size computer from
1989  with a LCD screen, a serial and a parallel port, and with a full-size
keyboard. For storage it uses 1 MB of internal ramdisk and four SSD slots (it
is a propietary technology which is not related to current SSD drives). The
MC600 is a MS-DOS machine, other MC-line computers use early version of PSION
OS which is well known from Series 3 palmtops.

The problem is that storage: the main Psion has enough of SSDs but for the
second machine  I have only on 1 MB and two 512 kB RAM-based SSDs. The DOS sees
every SSD as a independent disk drive (E:, F:, G:, H:) so location of larger
software packages (or biger files) is a problem. So at the momen I have there a
customised - actually a stripped down - PCC compiler (I have got a license for
it, it is still sold, BTW), a Volkov Commanedr, the SC spreadsheet and the
Gnuplot. And also the Kermit (as I need to transfer data t and from the
computer via serial line). But thats all. Both internal C: drive (1 MB) and the
1 MB SSD are full and I do not have CR1620 batteries for the further two 512 kB
SSDs. When they rrive then I'll put some C files and some date on the device.
But not much more... 

By the way, do you know any small, free, 2D CAD software which is compatible
with the MS-DOS on a 8086?  

P.S. This text was not written on a big and comfortable keyboard of MC600 but
on the ThinkOutside keyboard for Palm III. Thus sorry for any typos here. ;-)



Relative and absolute speed
===========================

My wife got a new notebook (it's something from Acer, with a nice red case but
with a small relatively RAM, it's about 4-5 years old). On paper, it is fast.
On reality, she uses our old Asus EEE instead (with Ubuntu). The EEE has even
smaller RAM but it runs MUCH faster with its software. I don't say that if
FEELS faster because IT actually IS faster: faster start, faster opening of
(comparable) software, faster scrolling...

Its not fun, it's an unfortunate reality.

Update: All sizes of SDD drives in psion are in MB at max (there was a typo: 1
GB instead of 1 MB so I fixed it). Thanks Logout!