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Ceci n'est ce pas Matt Gumbley
Updated Fri Nov 4 13:44:06 2005

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accesses so far.. plus 236636 as of 23/07/2003 when I shut down the old web site

Matt J. Gumbley | Website: http://www.gumbley.me.uk
Blog: On The Edge of Occam's Razor

All this is old, old, old...

This project or information is dead. I cannot release any code or further information on it, other than what you'll find on this page. All communication regarding it will be silently deleted. Apologies.

The psion-java, psion-tcpip and psion-c Projects

These pages are Matt's own pages for these projects. They will hold his latest documents and software development snapshots. They are not the definitive project home pages. If you want these, they are available from Dan Ramage's Home Page, as Dan is the official project web maintainer.

Hopefully, we'll come up with a catchy title to encompass the above long-winded name!

Dan Ramage's official project home pages

[ The Psion-Java home page | The Psion-TCP/IP home page | The Psion-C home page ]

Please feel free to join our mailing lists!

Al Sutton's official project FTP repository

[ ftp.inet.alsutton.com ]

Matt Gumbley's own project pages

[ Matt's psion-tcpip page | Matt's psion-c page ]

The Java Virtual Machine Specification

[ .tar.gz format | .zip format ]

Introduction

These projects are an attempt by Psion developers on the Internet to produce a set of freeware development tools for the Psion Series 3 organisers. The project started in January 1997 when Prof. Mike Pidd of Lancaster University asked the comp.sys.psion.programmer newsgroup:

From: M.Pidd@lancaster.ac.uk (Michael Pidd)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.psion.programmer
Subject: Java on a Psion?
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 11:17:38 -0800
Organization: Lancaster University
Does anyone know if it would be possible to develop a version of Java for the Psion 3x series? I certainly don't have the time or the ability to do so, but I'd be interested to know if it's possible and if anyone is trying. Presumably such a system could be a translator into some form of byte code for the Psion if someone has developed a Java virtual machine for Psion 3x machines?
Any views?
Mike Pidd

And so it started. Al Sutton kindly agreed to set up a mailing list for the emerging 'psion-java' group.

The ball starts rolling...

We soon realised that we would need TCP/IP, to support Java's network operations. The idea of a free port of Java and a free TCP/IP stack seemed almost too good to be true. Psion market their own PsiMail Internet package, but personally, after having had to pay 70 pounds for a serial cable, I wasn't going to get ripped off by them again. Being a Linux devotee, and a hacker at heart, I find there is a certain attractiveness in developing free software.

As Al Sutton noted:

From: Al Sutton
Newsgroups: comp.sys.psion.programmer
Subject: Re: Java on a Psion?
Organization: AlSutton.com
I'm willing to put up the mail aliases and web space if it would result in a freeware TCP/IP stack. I think that considering there were mail programs and HTML reader programs on the Psion before Psion decided to get involved in those areas the least they could have done was make the TCP/IP stack freeware as a guesture of good will to all the developers who have been working on making the Psion a communications tool.
As it stands they have hedges their bets and will make sure they get money from anyone who makes the Psion in to a Internet aware PDA.
I would eventually like to see a complete suite of freeware/shareware internet applications for the Psion just to show Psion themselves that there are other ways to sell things than the commercial method.
Any takers on the TCP/IP stack?
Al.

I don't have any development tools for the Psion - the professional SIBO C SDK costs 351.33 pounds, and the standard version is 211.50 pounds. That's just a little over my budget, since the Psion itself, PsiWin & cable, leather case and power supply was a very expensive package.

NB: I have since given in, and purchased the documentation set.

So, yet another free software idea: a free C software development kit. The psion-java and psion-tcpip packages would both run on the Psion themselves, but the psion-c package would run on a PC, probably under Linux.

Not yet a member of the Psioneers Web Ring, but working on it!