Similar to less popular handheld of the era, the Gameboy, the Psion used a proprietary cartridge format for distributing commercial software. Psion sold blank cartridges, flashing hardware and duplicators to software houses, as well as releasing a number of titles under their own license. There’s a wide range of commercial software available for the Series 3 family, and only some of it was ported to the Series 5 (I really wish Scrabble had been released on Series 5).
The range of software available was significant. Cartridges unlocked the Psion 3’s ability to play a large number of games, provide phrase book translation to a number of languages (Berliz Interpreter), route plan your car journeys (Microsoft Autoroute), look up the best wines for this year (Hugh Johnson’s Wine Guide) or build your organisation chart Purple Software’s OrgChart.
↫ Kian Ryan
I have a Psion 3, but the only cartridges I have are empty ones you can use for personal storage. I’ve always wanted to buy a selection of cartridges on eBay, but sadly, my Psion 3 died due to me forgetting to remove the batteries when immigrating to Sweden, something I only discovered like five years later. I was smart enough to remove all batteries from every single device in my massive collection, but I guess the Psion 3 slipped through my fingers.
Anyway, this article is a great look at some of the cartridges that existed for the Psion 3, and it’s really making me want to replace my broken Psion 3 and buy one that comes with a set of cartridges. There’s something really attractive about how the Psion 3’s EPOC operating system worked, and the third party programs look like so much fun to explore and use.
What a fun read! Thank you Thom. Even lander was ported… last time i played this game was on a 486 and it was not a vintage computer back then, but a crazy workstation with 4mb of ram.
How is the Gameboy the “less popular handheld of the era”?
It isn’t. Humour isn’t universal, so you’ll just have to accept this was a little bit of humour based on making a clearly untrue statement.
This post triggered me to check my Gameboy Advance. I haven’t look at it in years and had no idea whether there were batteries in it. Found it covered in nasty white stuff and rather unhealthy batteries. I cleaned it off on the outside. I have no idea if it will still turn on. Should I open it up as well?