Psion Organiser - Organiser II

Organiser II

In 1986, the successful Organiser II introduced a number of hardware improvements, a better keyboard and display, a much larger ROM and either 8K or 16K of battery-backed RAM, and featured a capable newly-designed single-tasking operating system. The first Organiser II models featured a two-line display. The new model supported a number of different types of improved DATAPAKs containing either EPROM or battery-backed RAM storage each storing between 8k and 128k of data. Later flashpaks (EEPROM) and RAMpaks were added to the range, capable of storing up to 256k on each extension slot.

The machine had vastly more application functionality, including a number of built-in application programs, an easy to use database, a diary and an alarm clock and featured end-user programmability in the form of the successful Organiser Programming Language (OPL), a BASIC-like language which was compiled to intermediate code, in contrast to the interpreters which were commonly available for other consumer computers of the time. More advanced users could reach into the system machine code routines either via direct machine code, or via calls from OPL, and could manipulate the built-in address database as well as create their own.

The Organiser II was widely used for commercial applications in companies such as Marks and Spencer, where it was used on the shop floor, and in the world's first large scale application of mobile technology in government where over 3000 were used for benefit calculations by the Employment Services department of the UK government.

The Organiser II also had an external device slot into which various plug-in modules could be fitted, including a device which provided an RS232 port (called 'CommsLink') to enabling it to communicate with other devices or computers. This "top slot" also supported various other hardware additions, such as telephone dialers, a speech synthesiser, barcode reader and even a dedicated thermal printer. This latter was used by several banks as a counter-top exchange rate calculator for some years. As it was easy to get hardware specifications, numerous bespoke devices were developed by small companies such as A/D converters and even an interface to the entire range of Mitutoya measuring equipment, allowing it to be used in quality control for various car manufacturers. Later models in the Organiser II range offered other hardware improvements, with 4-line displays, and also models were introduced with 32, 64 and 96KB RAM.