For me, the second half of the 80's was about playing games with my neighbor on his Atari 130XE and learning BASIC on a PMD 85 after school. Little I knew about sir Clive's Z88 which amaze me today. Playing games, writing documents, programming, calculating. Everything is possible. And hey, there is also a serial port and a terminal software, that mean no excuses to stay offline!
Fast forward from 1987 to 1999 when Palm has released it's Palm IIIx PDA. Small, with a touch screen. Using graffity, it is possible to write the same way as into a small paper notebook. Much more powerful hardware then the Z88, but also a bit similar device - no multitasking, but programs sleep in the background. No distraction, just pick it up, do the thing and turn it off again. Fast system responses make both devices a pleasure to use (especially today).
The technology of today is incredible compared to just a few years ago and I am happy for that. But I am also happy I can still appreciate how sophisticated some of the old tech stuff really is because it is still fun to use some of the old hardware. Not really for a daily tasks, but with built-in serial ports it is still a safe place for any kind of data as back-ups are so easy to do.
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