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It's times like this when my entire approach to life as a tech-lovin' geek seems to be entirely justified...when all the design decisions that went into a machine are the same ones I would make...when the whole thing just...works. But don't worry, this too shall pass, drowned in the next wave of foul tech, wretched marketeers and lazy product reviewers. Before it does, let me sing the praises of the sweetest intelligent keyboard it's been my pleasure to type on: the AlphaSmart Pro. Like other machines of its kind, it's basically a keyboard with just enough display, memory and software for basic word processing. The Alpha is all that and less.
It's kinda like a great comic book: it makes virtues of all its limitations. The display is only 40 characters wide, half what the competition offers--a throwback to the venerable ancestor of all laptops: the Tandy 100. The result? While you see less text per screen, you can actually read it! Alpha shoots...Alpha scores!
When was the last time you had a computer with operating instructions that fit comfortably on a small sheet of paper? You can type up to 64 pages. File management is handled by choosing 1 of 8 function keys, each will open a file of predetermined page size (16, 8, 8, 8, 8, 6, 6, 4). Hitting the size limit is a pretty graceful experience, no shocks, no bumps.
It's easy getting around inside of your document. After the last 13 years of computing, I've finally discovered (and fallen deeply in love with) the home and end keys. A standard set of arrows--straight or with modifier keys--handle the rest of your navigation needs.
 Uploading your text is a breeze. Open a wordpro doc on your desktop box. Unplug your keyboard, plug the cable into the Alpha and hit the send key. Watch your words flow onto the screen. Dirt simple. The only drawback is that the transfer is a bit slow. They sell one piece of (Mac only) utility software that speeds things up considerably (as well as making spreadsheet transfer a no-brainer), another to load text from your desktop unit into the Alpha. That 2nd one, by the way, is platform agnostic: Mac or Wintel may apply. Good for templates if you'll be using this for an educational application. (Education is their target market, incidentally, but civilians are allowed to purchase as well.) I'm looking for a downside...honest. Oh, yeah, this device is for keyboarding, not editing. No cut and paste, no spell checking, just a "find" function. So, take your meeting notes, write your postmodern sonnet, cut your code, but upload the text to your desktop before you rework it. I can tell I'm rattling on here, so let me stop runnin' up your phone bill and give you this list of other neat things about the AlphaSmart Pro:
I don't have stock in the company, I swear (and, near as I can tell, they're still privately owned). I know we're supposed to be seasoned pros from Dover here at Street Tech Labs, but hell, I got into the geek biz for cool tools in the first place. Count the Alpha as one of them! - Peter Sugarman [8/1/97]
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