May 1999, Vol. 10, No. 5
Autopilot
Taking a lap around the track with new portable reporting computers
In the beginning, there was the Teleram.
Well, actually, there were also PSIs and Texas Instruments Silent 700s and a couple of others that have leached from memory.
Twenty years ago, if a reporter needed to go
out into the field to write, he or she needed to dictate, use Western Union or try one of these newfangled "portable reporters' terminals."
Teleram, PSI and TI 700s were the choices for newspapers, though the word "portable" was a misnomer.
The original Teleram product was an 18-pound device similar in size (and portability) to a sewing machine. It used volatile Random Access Memory (RAM), which meant a reporter had to pray the electricity didn't cut out before the story had been sent via acoustic coupler-based modems (aka "cups").
The next-generation Teleram had a cassette-tape player installed so stories were preserved on tape (until it broke or the heads got too dirty). That was followed by a slightly lighter machine (12 pounds) that had an volatile "bubble" memory; it was called the PortaBubble.
Each had a screen the size of a bread plate.
But within five years of the introduction of the Teleram, the general computing industry became interested in portable computing (remember Osborne and KayPro?) and the Radio Shack Model 100 came out.
It was light, it was fast and it was cheap. We abandoned industry-specific products quickly; Teleram failed.
But within five years, Radio Shack stopped making Model 100s and the much-improved Model 200, and most newspapers began purchasing MS-DOS portables called "laptops." For the last decade -- with the exception of slightly better operating systems -- laptops have been state-of-the-art for portable reporter writing devices.
Inside, Correspondent Steven E. Brier gives us a rundown on the latest and greatest in laptop computers. Not surprisingly, many comparisons are between current tools and the box commonly called the Trash 80, with the original still the greatest in many minds and newsrooms, especially sports desks.
It’s equally unsurprising that while Toshiba is widely used, no single laptop has won the industry’s favor. But I have a modest proposal for the road warriors of our business: Get a Palm Pilot, a keyboard and a Palm Modem.
While you may know of Palm Computing Inc., a division of 3Com Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., you may not know that a peripheral supplier -- LandWare Inc. of Oradell, N.J. -- has created a small, cheap ($80) keyboard for any Palm device, called GoType.
I've been using a Palm Pilot for about 14 months, mostly as a place to store notes, phone messages and calendar info, thereby combining two things I carried around (a notebook and a pocket calendar) into one (the Palm Pilot). But when I went on the road, I had to bring along my Mac laptop, too -- for e-mail and to take notes when I was acting as a reporter.
Last fall, the GoType was introduced. I purchased it, along with the modem -- plus a Palm Pilot upgrade to enable my machine to support the modem -- and an e-mail package, HandMail from SmartCode Software Inc. of San Diego. My first problem was that HandMail and the GoType enabler didn't play well together -- after typing, you have to turn off the GoType software before trying to send or receive e-mail.
Otherwise, the software works well.
However, the GoType keyboard, which is 10-inches-by-21/2-inches and weighs 13 ounces, has one basic problem: The right-hand shift key is in the wrong place. I touch-type, and so I accidentally scroll up when I'm trying to get an upper-case A, for example.
But aside from these two minor annoyances, I have successfully used this setup during my travels over the last six months. I don't think I'd want to write a novel on the thing, but it’s adequate for most reporting tasks. Plus, it all weighs 23 ounces, runs on AA and AAA batteries -- and all the components cost less than $500.
I seem to remember we paid $10,000 for our first Telerams.
-- David M. Cole
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From THE COLE PAPERS, May 1999, Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved.