Comment by gregsadetsky

That’s a very fair point, thank you.

I do hope that the form factor, “polish” — how much of a finished product the Precursor is, and the possibility of programming/extending it can serve as an inspiration/starting point for future hobbyist mobile tech.

I know that it’s a very heterogeneous mix, but just to note some contemporary devices that evoke “similar” feelings: Panic’s Playdate [0] and the recently crowdfunded Flipper Zero [1].

Maybe all of these remind me in some ways of the Gameboy, electronic organizers from the 2000s [2], pre-smartphone Symbian Nokias [3] (and every qwerty/slide out keyboard device from back then), all of which I grew up with.

But, it also seems like there’s a lot of interest now to create digital experiences that aren’t tied to existing social media platforms, aren’t engineered to simultaneously maximize addiction and profit (through advertisement and the sale of personal data).

Developing towards that future is immensely exciting.

0 - https://play.date/

1 - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flipper-devices/flipper...

2 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_organizer

3 - https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-10-best-symbian-phones-ever