— Series 3 FileSystem for PsiONtrack —

First release

What is it?

This release of PsiONtrack (version 1.2) adds access to the older "Series 3" amd "Siena" palmtops, so you can now mount your Psion Series 3 as a BeOS filesystem under BeOS.

PsiONtrack itself — until now only compatible with series 5 (EPOC) Psions — is essentially an update of Michael Pieper's "PalmBeach", which was only for the Series 3 machines. His original version of the filesystem was omitted from PsiONtrack before, because PalmBeach only ever reached an 'alpha' release, and had a number of kernel-crashing bugs. These should now have been squashed, but there are still a few deficiencies, see Bugs below

It was always intended that Series 3 capability should be added back in (and the PsiONtrack main app itself has always had the necessary code), but the levels of effort and urgency never seemed to equate... However, my 5mx had to be shipped off for the inevitable "cable replacement", so I had to return to my old S3a for a while, and decided it was time that I finally made that effort!

The filesystem module for the Series 3 is installed by the supplied Install script with the rest of the system. Most of the information you need to use it can be found in the main PsiONtrack manual. These notes will simply point out any differences.

Operation

Unlike the Series 5, which has a serial port cable included, you of course need the "3-LINK" accessory to connect s Series 3 to your BeOS box. Without that, you're out of luck. You need to set up serial port and data rate as described in the main manual, before you can connect to your Series 3. Remember that the old machines are slower, with a maximum data rate of 19200, so set PsiONtrack appropriately.

PsiONtrack determines which type of palmtop it is talking to automatically, so you don't have to specify anything. (However if you do have both Series 3 and Series 5 machines, you will probably want to reset at least the data rate when you change connections. There is currently no way to have separate preference settings for each.)

Before clicking 'Connect' in the PsiONtrack window, you have to start the remote link on the Psion. Open the main menu 'Special/Remote Link' panel, set it to 'On', and make sure the data rate matches that set in PsiONtrack. Then click 'Connect' amd you should see "NCP" and "SYS$RCSV" appear in the window. (Unlike the Series 5, a Series 3 will not switch on automatically when a connection is requested.)

It takes a few moments for the desktop icons to appear, but you should eventually see one labelled "RAMDRIVE" and one called "C_LINK". You can ignore the latter — it is just the comms firmware. "RAMDRIVE" is where the contents of your Psion can be found. If you have an SSD installed, you should also see an icon for that, with an appropriate label.

The main limitation of the Series 3, as far as BeOS is concerned, is that filenames are restricted to "8.3" format (and case is ignored). This means that you can drag files from Psion to BeOS without problem, but you should make sure a filname is compatible before going the other way. A name that's too long will get truncated, but make sure that doesn't result in a conflict with something else. Note that the name you initially see in the Psion's Tracker window when it is copied from BeOS will look like the the original one (with some lower case for instance), but the next time you open the window it will be in Psion style.

Bugs

This is still not a rock solid application. Use at your own risk! In particular, the link sometimes seem to lose track of what it's doing, and you will get an error when trying to write to the Psion. Once this happens, it is useless to continue — you will have to disconnect and reconnect to get things working again. (You don't have to turn off the Psion or close PsiONtrack at that point though.) (If you run PsiONtrack from a Terminal, the condition is indicated by a flood of 'XOFF' messages being reported. I have struggled and failed to find the cause...)

One thing that is not handled properly yet is directory creation and deletion. You can probably add a directory to the Psion by dragging and dropping one from the Tracker, but you can't use the "New Folder" menu item — for the simple reason that the initial name "New Folder" is not legal on the Series 3. If you "delete" a folder on the Psion via its icon in a Tracker window, it will seem to go away, but in fact is still there! [It may cause more deep seated, but not immediately apparent problems. I'm not sure.] I suggest you always use the Psion's own facilities for directory management.

PalmBeach Kinship

As mentioned repeatedly, PsiONtrack is based heavily on Michael Pieper's PalmBeach. The Series 3 filesystem itelf is simply a bug-fixed version of his code.

Michael's package contained a couple of add-ons not included in PsiONtrack. These let the Psion 3 see the directories and files on the BeOS drives, the reverse of providing the Psion files to the BeOS Tracker as the filesystem add-ons do. However, this facility was dropped in the Series 5 (for good reason, I think!), and using the Tracker is far more convenient, so the add-ons are not in PsiONtrack. The original modules are still perfectly compatible with PsiONtrack, though, so if you really wanted you could import them into the add-ons folder from PalmBeach.