Recycling

While you read this you could listen to this extraordinary east meets west collaboration.

Clearing out an office drawer we found many old gadgets and one was a Psion Revo, a sort of pocket organiser. I had never seen it being used and I located all the bits and plugged it in. The battery life was about 10 minutes so it was not in the best of health. I got a couple of solder tagged AAA NiMH cells and set to work.
First the "revo" badge needed to come off. I levered up one edge with a blade enough so that I could slip some floss in.

From Psion Revo

The floss tended to be cut by the badge but it eventually came off. Next the hinge pins could be extracted.

From Psion Revo

These are just rotated and then can slide out.

From Psion Revo

Then the whole hinge mechanism can slide back together with the ribbon cable.

From Psion Revo

It was another very fiddly step to unhook the springs and the rear pins so that the battery could be fully exposed.

From Psion Revo

This is just a peek at the end of the battery after I replaced it. The connector has a red and black wire carrying the power and the blue wires are for the thermistor that controls the charging process.
The Revo is a fun gadget. It is ideal for taking notes and has a surprisingly capable word processor. You just open it and it is alive where you left off last time. You shut the lid and it is off. The touch screen is accurate and you use it instead of a mouse. There are some utilities that can be downloaded. I installed a telnet, piano keyboard, a 3D tank battle game and Pacman. I also found the drawing program, "Sketch" which was designed for the bigger Psion models but worked fine on the Revo.
The other applications are now quite useless now that mobile phones are so powerful. You don't need contacts or a calendar. Neither email or a phonebook. The time is handy but not essential. The calculator comes in handy now and again. But the ability to have a small but usable keyboard to write documents anywhere that you go is really good. Also the ability to sketch using the touch-screen is a bonus for drawing quick diagrams. And the way that it backs up everything to your computer as soon as you plug it in to charge. The backup is good enough to restore the entire machine including all the extra programs even if the battery was changed. And the fact that the battery can last for several days of blogging without needing a charge.