der.hans@LuftHans.com
Psion has been making PDA's for years. This document will initially concentrate on the newer Series 5* models, e.g. Series 5, Series 5mx and Series 5mx PRO, but I hope to eventually include info about using older models such as the Series 3* with Linux.
The latest version of this document can be found at http://home.pages.de/~lufthans/unix/docs/HOWTO/psion-HOWTO.html and will hopefully be included in the Linux Documentation Project ( LDP).
Please send updates, corrections or suggestions to psion@LuftHans.com.
There is a mailing list dedicated to using Psions with Linux and developing tools to enhance communication between them.
To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@geekstuff.co.uk, containing the message "subscribe Linux-Psion".
There is also a mailing list dedicated to porting Linux to the Psion 5* models at linux-7110@redhat.com
(c) 1999 Hans Kugler
This document may be distributed under the terms set forth in the LDP license at http://www.linuxdoc.org/COPYRIGHT.html.
This document is provided ``AS IS'', with no express or implied warranties. Use the information in this document at your own risk.
Psion is a powerful Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with pen-based touch screen as well as keyboard. There are several models. This HOWTO currently only covers the Series 5* models, e.g. Series 5, Series 5mx and Series 5mxPro.
There are several models of Psion PDAs. All have a foldout case where the screen is in the cover and opening the Psion causes the keyboard to jut out to a more usable position. They also feature the instant on and instant off capabilities of the EPOC operating system.
Psion 3* are older PDAs that still have a lot of functionality and still get sold new due to their meeting needs and being lower cost. This HOWTO doesn't currently cover the Psion 3* series.
Psion 5* has two main product lines with each having two models. The Psion series 5 has a green limited edition counterpart with no functional difference between itself and the standard Series 5. The series 5mxPro, however, has some fundamental differences from the Series 5mx.
All four of the Series 5* products have: compact flash, serial port, keyboard and stylus (for the touchscreen). They all operate on 2 AA batteries and have a backup battery to maintain state when changing out the main batteries. Check out http://www.aha.ru/~akaev/english/indexe.htm to take a tour of a dissected Series 5 classic.
Both of the Series 5 models as well as the Series 5mx have system ROMs where the EPOC operating system is stored. After boot they operate out of the RAM (8MB for the Series 5 models and 16MB for the Series 5mx). The Series 5mxPro, however, has no ROM and operates entirely out of its 24MB of RAM. This enables software upgrades to the Series 5mxPro, whereas the other 3 models must exchange hardware to update EPOC.
Psion recently released the Series 7, which is set to compete against the subnotebook class of PC, but running EPOC.
There are rumors of a Series 6 coming out before the end of 1999. No formal indication of what type of product the Series 6 will be.
Psion products are no longer available at retail stores in the US. They are available from retail shops in Europe as well as through mail order. Psion maintains a list of mail order firms by country on their web site.
The Psions have both serial and infra red ports. Either can be used for connectivity, but most connectivity programs currently only have features for the serial port connection.
Armin Podtschaske x-rayed the "honda" connector. His page has an explanation of the pin out in German.
Here it is for those who don't speak German :).
Pin 1 is on the top and pin 15 is on the bottom. Only pins 2 through 8 and 15 are connected.
See the IrDA HOWTO for information about using the Linux IrDA driver with a Psion. It is possible to beam files from Psion 5 (mx) via Linux-IrDA to a Linux System. The irda-utils include a special client psion5.c which can beam files between them.
There are two builtin software methods to use the communications ports. The first is the remote link, <ctrl>-l from the main file menu, which can be set to serial, infrared or off.
EPOC also provides the program comms. The remote link must be set to off for the comms program to have access to the serial port.
plptools (current releases from Matt Gumbley) was originally developed by Fritz Elfert, who had merged plp and p3nfs/p5nfs. plptools is currently being worked on by members of the Linux-Psion mailing list.
plptools comprises of 3 different programs. ncpd provides a socket connection to the Psion. plpnfsd provides mounted filesystem access to the Psion and plpftp provides ftp access to the Psion.
See ftp://ftp.to.com/pub/psion/ for Fritz' original releases.
ncpd [-V] [-v logclass] [-d] [-p <port>] [-s <device>] [-b <baudrate>]
plpnfsd [-v] [-V] [-p port] [-d mountdir] [-u user]
First start ncpd get it to listen on a port (7501 by default) for connection requests. Then, start either plpnfsd or plpftp. plpnfsd defaults to mount the Psion under /mnt/psion.
kpsion is available under unstable/apps/utils/ at your favorite KDE mirror.
It provides a method to use kfm (KDE File Manager) to directly access files on the Psion via a serial link. Psion files can be opened by using 'psion:' or 'epoc:' URLs. It uses ncpd from the plptools package, which must be running to use kpsion, to handle the serial connection.
kpsion also has a Psion Word->HTML/Text viewer/ converter built from psiconv to allow viewing documentation created with Psion Word under Linux.
kpsion is currently ALPHA support for connecting to a Psion Series 5*. It is only available in source and only builds against KDE 1.1 and KDE 1.2. Please read the README and INSTALL files that come with the tarball.
p3nfs mounts the psion drives over the serial cable at /psion.stand/mnt, by default.
Matt Gumbley originally started ncp for use with his Psion Series 3. Now that he's working on plptools, you should use that :). However, ncp might still be of interest to users of a Psion Series 3, which this HOWTO doesn't cover :). Matt's ncp page also has information about the plp protocol.
Psiconv translates Psion Word documents to HTML (3.2 or 4.0) or plain text.
The EPOC SDK works on Linux via WINE, see Olaf Flebbe's web page for instructions on how to get it working.
hermes is a fully featured vt100 emulator.
Olaf Flebbe has perl running under EPOC.
Duncan Booth has python running under EPOC.
E_Shell is a DOS-like shell environment. It provides ways to launch programs from a command line; to check for file system corruption; to create, edit and display plain text files; to check on currently active processes and threads.
c2f converts the Psion contact file to a comma delimited format.
As I said earlier, this HOWTO doesn't cover the Series 3 ( e.g. 3/3a/3c/3mx/Sienna ), however, as I run into information, I will try to place it here anyway. This section will probably never be organized (unless someone else keeps it uptodate), but it still might contain useful information.
p3nfs, referenced above mounts the psion drives over the serial cable at /psion.stand/mnt, by default.
nfsc is a vt100 emulator.
Zerlegeanleitung Psion Serie 3a