Magic Castle

The Home of the Psion MC series Mobile Computer

A screenshot of the 640 x 400 screen of the MC400...

The Iconize/Minimize Button

Using the Iconize Button in the upper left corner of the screen results in the active program being minimized and displayed as an Icon on the screen background.
The only way to activate this button is to use the Touchpad

The Active program Menu

The menu area always displays the active programs menus. Displayed here is the menus belonging to the System application.
The menu's can be activated by either the Touchpad or by Pressing the Psion key in conjunction with a Numeric key. For example, pressing Psion + 1 gives the first meny, in this case the File menu.

Of course, all menu choices have their keyboard shortcuts. (Not shown)
Pressing Psion + E usually Exit's the active program... (If the program follows Psion's Design rules :-)

Special function buttons

Some program have special functions accessible via these extra buttons on the screen. They, just as the menus, can be accessed by either the Touchpad or by Pressing the Psion key in conjunction with a Numeric key.
The Numeric keys to use is the next numbers available after the Menu's keys. For example, here there are 3 menus, therefore the first special button uses the Psion + 4 combination.

Especially the Off button accessed by Psion + 5 combination while the System application is active is very useful... (It turns the MC machine off :-)

The System Clock

So what? It's a clock... What else do you need to know about it?

The System Window

This window contains the icons of all the installed programs.(not necessarily all programs on the MC, just the ones that are installed)
The icons in this case are:
(from left to right)

Text Editor	A simple and easy to use text editor. Also works as the OPL IDE ...
Diary	A simple time planner program.
Database	An easy to use Database.
Calculator	A simple calculator program. Just as on the Organiser II and the later SIBO(S3xx) versions, it's possible to include translated OPL modules in this calculator, making it potentially very flexible and powerful... (Incidentally, that's the function most often asked for in the EPOC version :-)
Alarm	Why not use your MC to wake you up in the morning?
File Manager	With up to 4 SSD's in addition to file storage in the internal memory, you just have to have a decent file manager. This one can also access files on remote computers IF the link is running...
Link	On the MC, the link-up to a remote computer(PC), is done with a stand-alone program, instead of being a part of the OS. There's probably a reason for it.
Terminal	If the computer you want to connect to isn't a PC, then you use this Terminal Emulator. I don't know what it emulates, but among the useful functions there's: Auto(auto adjust parameters), Xmodem(Xmodem, Xmodem CRC and Xmodem Checksum) file transfer protocols,
Save	settings and Capture.
WP	This is the MC word Text Processor. It's the Direct ancestor to the one found in the later Psion S3 and compatibles. (Uses the same file format)
Advent	This is a conversion of the colossal Cave adventure that was originally written for the Organiser II range. It's shown here just to tease...