Just bought RamPack 256K ...

[Yves]

Hi,

I've just bought a RamPack 256K on eBay (https://www.ebay.ca/itm/204519329030) from Pierre, made by Andrew Menadue.
Is it a prototype or a stable version?

PS: Where can I find the small "64k RAMPACK" or "256k RAMPACK" PSION stickers for the rampack case (if they still exists) and also the yellow ones for the other side usually provided with the Psion Organiser?

[amenjet]

Hi,
That is a stable version. I carried it about for several weeks and did get a couple of resizing events. Well, I didn't carry yours about, I carried an earlier one that I made. i do test the packs, but not to that extent. I then carried an original 32K RAM pack and got many more (about 3 times as many) resizing events. So, it appears to have less problems that the original, but it is still not as good as a flash pack. I put important data in a 512K flash pack and that works really well.

Andrew

[Yves]

I received the RamPack 256K yesterday. This is a game changer (for the Organiser 2 of course)!
Very nice job and till now, no issues at all. I added, deleted files a few times, without any issue.
It is well recognized by the softwares and the device itself.

[thesourcerer]

Just noticed Yves earlier postscript about labels. The yellow labels can be printed from the pdf somewhere on this forum (Tom Lake?). The Rampack labels for 64k and 256k were not made by Psion. MSE and other companies made them originally and the 256k was later redesigned by Olivier Gossuin and Andrew Menadue. Since Psion did not sell them directly they did not produce labels. It is a fairly easy graphics job to recreate them in Psion format, which my label printers could easily do, but they have a minimum order of 1000, so unless someone wanted to paper their living room with them it is a no go. I don’t think Andrew would want to make a thousand, and I don’t think there is more than a handful of Psion users who would buy them. Having said that I think I must have sold about 50 in the last 20 years or so, and there is a growing new generation of Psion fans (but a diminishing group of us old fogies)!

[thesourcerer]

The 512k Flash datapack labels were produced by my label printers (Psion never made any 512k Flash datapacks). I thought it was worthwhile buying a roll of them, even though I knew I would never use them all. It was more as a mark of respect for Olivier and Andrew’s fine efforts.

[Yves]

I think these stickers are easy to make and not so easy to find. It's not a priority, just an aesthetic question for me. Of course, there is no question of buying 1000 of them, I won't know what to do with them and our community is not big enough to share them. I was thinking more about attic finds from old stock if that existed. Thank you for your answers, always enriching!

[Martin]

It has to be said the 512K Flash Pack labels are great. I'm not going to embarrass you by asking what you paid for the 1000.

From an aesthetics point of view Psion did of course produce some 'blank label' datapak cases and slot covers - so you could go 'mysterious' and leave it blank.
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BlankCovers.JPG

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Perhaps you could go for one of Peters 'coloured' datapak covers.
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ColouredCovers.png

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Because I put the pocket spreadsheet on mine I use the pocket spreadsheet pack cover.
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datapaks.JPG

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Sincerely Martin
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[Yves]

Hi Martin,

I used a Psion blank label for my 256k ... I have theses of course. I remember also I had 2 blue cases when I had my 256k RamDrives a long time ago.

As I said, this is just a simple question. I believe this should be easy nowadays to print these small stickers, but Psion did it on thin aluminium stickers, they were professional.

[thesourcerer]

Regarding the labels, with the original large batch of datapacks that I bought (over 6000), many of them had missing or damaged labels. They were 16k and 32k, so I ordered 1000 of each. Having paid for a template (£30) it was cheaper too get similar ones, and I later ordered 32k low power ones (with the circled P), CE marked Comms Link labels and 512k Flash datapack ones, the latter two being smaller quantities of a couple of hundred, so I hadn’t actually ordered 1000 512k. I also bought several thousand of the yellow labels, and they are all gone now.
Regarding pack colours, I have had a range in the past.
White (various commercial programs, both Psion and Dutch versions)
Light blue (spreadsheet)
Bright blue (Widget Filemaster)
Dark blue (a few, some Dutch
Green (Autoscribe Plus)
Red (Prudential and Telecom)
Yellow (?)
Pink (only one)
And of course black and grey.
Telecom also used orange window side covers for some of the Cipher packs, but not for the main case.
I do have quite a few yellow ones spare.
I know that Ferret started using Dutch packs because they were much cheaper than original Psion ones. They are mainly 32k but also 64k and 128k embossed into the moulding.
I know that Bach Flower Remedies based on the Netherlands used a lot of Psions even well after the millennium, and I wonder if they were the impetus for manufacturing the Dutch packs. I sold 100 XP’s to them (I think it was Bach, although the buyer would not reveal the end use), and it was cheaper for me to fly over to Amsterdam (and stay for a long weekend) rather than post them!
Small correction Yves, the Psion stickers were plastic, not aluminium.

[PaulK]

That's really interesting! Thanks for sharing.

I wonder what someone would need with all those Psions these days (or back in the noughties)?

Would love to know why these chose Psions for whatever they are doing, but great that they did!

I wonder if they are still in use there?

Cheers
Paul