💾 Archived View for gem.mjb.im › gemlog › 2020-10-06-alphasmart.gmi captured on 2020-11-07 at 00:40:30. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Written October 6th, 2020
I'm writing this on an AlphaSmart Neo2, a device originally created by some ex-Apple employees back in the 90's (?) which was to serve as an affordable computer especially tailored towards schools. The device is just a keyboard and a small LCD display (and a few ports). No hinges, no wifi, no bluetooth, no mouse support, just typing.
It comes preloaded with a bunch of education software. Calculator, word games, and apparently some kind of software for answering clicker questions in a lecture hall, I think? I haven't read up super deep on that part of it. I have also long since removed those programs to free up more internal memory for text storage.
This humble device has found a new home in the hands of writers. I would not call myself a serious author, but I do enjoy writing essays, posts, tabletop game campaigns and a little bit of fiction here and there. I picked one of these up for some distraction free writing and it is an absolute joy. It was also $35 USD. Compare that to the admittedly much more appealing looking Freewrite digital typewriter, which sports a mechanical keyboard and e-ink display and oh, retails at a cool $550 USD.
Here's my favorite part of this thing - while yes you can get software to browse the internal files via usb, the honestly easiest way to pull text off of it is to plug it in to your computer via usb cable, where your computer then identifies it as a keyboard, then pull up the file you want to import and press the dedicated "Send" key. The AlphaSmart will then begin to automate typing out the file character by character, super quick, into whatever text editor you have open currently. Amazing.
Could that process be less finnicky? Yeah, definitely. But it works, and it will never not work. The proprietary software to browse this thing's internals doesn't work on all systems and will eventually be lost to time, but as long as a computer can recognize a USB keyboard, this thing will be able to interface.
So it seems fitting to write out a post to be served via the gemini protocol on my AlphaSmart. A device almost lost to obscurity before being resurrected by writers, used to write a post on a site for a protocol built to help evoke a very similar feeling resurrecting a way of communication nearly lost. Granted, gemini is super new and specifically is not old, but I think that makes it even more fun to consider that these two concepts are meeting.
If you like to write, I highly recommend looking up the AlphaSmart Neo2. You can find them on ebay in pretty good condition most of the time. Oh, also a few AA batteries will last this thing AN ENTIRE YEAR, so make of that what you will.