cheap and simple word processor?

[geoffrey]

I want a device that is a word processor and nothing else. I don't want an internet connection on it, nor do I want GPS on it, nor maps, nor anything else. I want a computer that has a blank white screen on which I can type. I want to be able to save the documents onto the computer and onto a thumb drive.

And I certainly don't want to pay much money for it. I am basically asking for an electronic pen and paper.

Does it exist?

[talysman]

Probably not anymore. You could probably scrounge around for an old word processor -- friend of mine just successfully scored the complete WordStar floppies for his Osborne -- but this wouldn't meet your thumb drive requirement.

About the closest you could get would be a Chromebook that you didn't connect to the internet hardly at all. Connect once, go to stackedit.io/ and then turn off the WiFi. Keep that tab open forever.

[Lorgalis]

Google - portable word processor. There are many there for sale

[chrisj]

A Chromebook is affordable and the Google Drive productivity apps work offline.

[Keps]

I want a new car but without wheels.

Stop being snarky, or I start being snarky. - Rafe, Almighty Mod

[flightcommander]

Close?


www.amazon.com/Digital-Memo-Pomera-Premium-Black/dp/B001KT0KNW

[derv]

Not an area of my expertise, but from what I understand there is a demand for such a thing among bloggers. They are often referred to as "memo writers".

One of note is the Pomera DM20. It runs around $70. If you need more storage capacity, then take a look at the DM100 for around $225.

These devices are simple portable text editors and they do have some draw backs. Basically they do not do spell check or page counts. Also, they are made in Japan and have a different style keyboard that may take getting use to, as well as having small screens.

But, they do use micro SD cards or usb cards/cables. They seem to have a pretty long battery life of 20 hrs. and are very portable.

edit: aha! flight commander beat me to it since I'm a clod at the keyboard. There ya have a link.

[dukeofchutney]

Some ideas, get a small laptop and just install open office on it. Open the network settings and just disable the internet. You could go into my computer, device manager and disable the network adapter. Before the arrival of the ipad and other tablets there were netbooks and small note books that were pretty small. E.g. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/380864833727?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=108&device=c&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=108&ff19=0



I cannot remember the name of it, but when i applied to university (UK)(2005) i got a disabled students allowance and a free laptop. I had the option of having rather than a laptop a keyboard with a very small calculator type screen that i could just type and save documents for export on. It was light weight and just for note taking. The screen was small, you could only see a sentence or two typed on it. I didn't take it, but this seems to come close to your description.

Also there is crap like this;
www.amazon.co.uk/Acecad-DigiMemo-A402-Digital-electromagnetic/dp/B000M49HQW/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt


Pretty much anything you buy that was designed since 2010 is going to have internet connectability. When smart phones hit it became mandatory for most electronics. If you can find things that are from the early 2000s or before you have a greater chance they were not designed to connect of themselves.


Edit; Search for electronic typewriters. Some have displays and usb but no internet.

[Mushgnome]

Got a spare laptop/netbook running Windows, Mac, or Linux? Try Focuswriter! It fills the screen and turns your computer into a typewriter (with optional sound effects).

gottcode.org/focuswriter/

Do you enjoy DIY computer projects? An intriguing concept called the "CLI typewriter" is a portable, minimalist operating system that you carry on a thumb-drive in your pocket. You can boot any host computer to a command-line text editor (like vim or emacs). Because it is running in console mode, it will be fast even on junk hardware you can find out on the curb. Here are a couple of variations on that theme:

linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1013
crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=33448

Another favorite console editor of mine is WordGrinder:

wordgrinder.sourceforge.net/

[tog]

Jul 19, 2014 12:18:32 GMT -6 Keps said:

I want a new car but without wheels.

It's the 21st Century. I was promised a flying car.

[tog]

Jul 19, 2014 15:19:17 GMT -6 Mushgnome said:

Do you enjoy DIY computer projects?

Those Raspberry Pi things they talk highly of on Lifehacker.com run about $35 (I think); you could throw together something with one of those, maybe?

But I think geoffrey is asking for something ready-made.

[paulg]

Check out the recently discontinued word processors by AlphaSmart. You should be able to score one very inexpensively on eBay. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart

You could also just get any old laptop and physically unplug or cut the wifi antenna, if it's distractions you're trying to avoid.

[Deleted]

I think the easiest/cheapest fix is to just use a program like Mushgnome suggested. Google distraction free or full screen writing program and you can read some reviews to see what ones look good to you.

[Keps]

Jul 19, 2014 15:49:49 GMT -6 tog said:

Jul 19, 2014 12:18:32 GMT -6 Keps said:

I want a new car but without wheels.

It's the 21st Century. I was promised a flying car.

I guess if you have enough Gold Pieces. These don't look like they would hold my golf clubs or the kids. 

[krusader74]

Option 1. Don't get a dedicated device, just replace the software you are using in order to get rid of distractions.

The type of software @mushgnome suggested goes by many names:

• full-screen writing program
• distraction-free editor
• minimalist text editor
• focused-writing app

They exist on all platforms: Windows, Mac, iPad, Linux and Android.

There is a Wikipedia article about them here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distraction-free_editor

There are also many online reviews of them---

• 20+ Distraction-Free Minimal Writing Apps to Help You Focus Your Blog Content Creation
• 7 Distraction-Free Writing Environments for Authors
• Five Best Distraction-Free Writing Tools

Option 2: Don't get a dedicated device, switch your operating system instead.

Put FreeDOS on a USB stick or a CD and boot from it: www.freedos.org/

Then use an old-school DOS text editor: For instance, I'm sure most everyone on this forum has heard that George R. R. Martin still uses WorStar 4.0 on DOS, and if not, then here is an article about it:

George R. R. Martin writes with a DOS word processor

Another option for DOS is WordPerfect. Version 4.1 was known for its clean, clutter-free interface.

The minimalist programmer's editor, Brief, is still around for DOS, OS/2 and Windows: www.briefeditor.com/

Option 3: Get a dedicated device.

When I do the following search on eBay, I get a list of many inexpensive word processors, including the AplhaSmart already suggested by @paulg:

www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=word+processor

There are also many Brothers, Canons, Smith Coronas, Tandys, and so forth.

[waysoftheearth]

I have pretty much the same requirements and have tried various solutions from mechanical typewriters to most of the free/cheap "writing environments" for Mac and PC.

In the end I've found that there are two things that matter:
1) The quality of keyboard is paramount (which rules out many input devices including most mechanical typewriters as well as many modern devices with cramped/toy/poor/virtual keyboards), and
2) how you visualise what you are doing matters. Zero distractions is a good thing, but there are a basic set of productivity functions that you'll miss if you don't have. Also, a poorly designed, positioned, dirty, reflective, or low contrast display will quickly get tiring.

I've eventually settled on a cheap Windows netbook with a good keyboard running the (free, Windows only) Q10 editor. The netbook I'm using is a 2008 model HP (a Mini 2140) which is sub $100 today. There are still some for sale on ebay.

When I'm at home I plug in an Apple keyboard and a flatscreen monitor. On the go, the 2140 weighs about 2 lbs and its keyboard is easily the best I've tried on a netbook.

Jul 19, 2014 11:11:20 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

I want a computer that has a blank white screen on which I can type.

You might also consider trying a black (or dark) screen as many people find the glare of a white screen fatiguing. FWIW, a black screen with dark green text works for me.

[Deleted]

What precisely are you trying to achieve?

[geoffrey]

Jul 20, 2014 16:09:48 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

What precisely are you trying to achieve?

I am putting together a new book to submit to my publisher. I don't want to have to share our current laptop with my wife. I don't want to risk computer viruses, trojans, malware, etc. I don't want to risk the NSA. I don't want to risk non-governmental hackers. I want to be able to swiftly, simply, safely, and cheaply type and save my manuscript on this desired computer, copy it onto a thumb drive, and then use the thumb drive with our current laptop to email the document to my publisher.

To my mind it's crazy that I can't go to any office supply store and buy for less than $100 what I'm looking for. I can buy for a few bucks a calculator that does nothing whatsoever but calculate numbers. My $70 Kindle (which is NOT connected to any "cloud") does nothing but display books for me to read. I bought a Blu-ray player for $70 that does nothing but play movies. Etc.

Yet it isn't a simple matter to buy a cheap and simple word processor. (That isn't to say that I am without appreciation for all the advice I've received in this thread. Thanks to all! It's just crazy that I can't just walk into Wal-Mart and walk out 10 minutes later and $70ish dollars poorer with exactly what I want.)

[waysoftheearth]

Jul 20, 2014 20:52:09 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

It's just crazy that I can't just walk into Wal-Mart and walk out 10 minutes later and $70ish dollars poorer with exactly what I want.)

It's not crazy. It's just suggesting that there isn't a viable market for the product you want at the price point you want to pay.

[geoffrey]

Jul 20, 2014 21:05:24 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Jul 20, 2014 20:52:09 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

It's just crazy that I can't just walk into Wal-Mart and walk out 10 minutes later and $70ish dollars poorer with exactly what I want.)

It's not crazy. It's just suggesting that there isn't a viable market for the product you want at the price point you want to pay.

That's what I think is crazy.

[talysman]

Jul 20, 2014 20:52:09 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

To my mind it's crazy that I can't go to any office supply store and buy for less than $100 what I'm looking for. I can buy for a few bucks a calculator that does nothing whatsoever but calculate numbers. My $70 Kindle (which is NOT connected to any "cloud") does nothing but display books for me to read. I bought a Blu-ray player for $70 that does nothing but play movies. Etc.

Yet it isn't a simple matter to buy a cheap and simple word processor. (That isn't to say that I am without appreciation for all the advice I've received in this thread. Thanks to all! It's just crazy that I can't just walk into Wal-Mart and walk out 10 minutes later and $70ish dollars poorer with exactly what I want.)

I was discussing this with a friend -- the one with an Osborne -- and aside from some electric typewriters with digital displays, which typically don't allow saving anything anywhere, your best bet may be to go to places like Big Lots. There are some off-brand tablets that sell for about $70-90 there, seriously underpowered and kind of a rip-off for people looking for a tablet -- but possibly just right for you, since they can't do much of the fancier stuff. Some come with a keyboard, but it's probably too small. If you can find one with Bluetooth, though, you can connect a better keyboard.

I have a Google Nexus 7, not one of those tablets, but I also have a $20 Bluetooth keyboard I got at Big Lots, which I'm using to type this comment with. It works fine; it's not as large as I would like, but big enough to not be annoying. I used it with the stackedit.io trick I described above to publish to my blog or create simple PDFs. It can also save HTML files to Dropbox or Google Drive, or save it locally. If you don't want to upload to the cloud, you can connect a tablet via the USB cable to the laptop, essentially using it as a large USB drive, not quite as convenient as a thumbdrive, but it will work.

[waysoftheearth]

For around $70 I still think a second-hand netbook with a good keyboard will be your best option.

. Never connect it to any network.
. Use a cheap/free OS and cheap/free editor.
. Save all your work to a USB stick.

Done.

[Deleted]

Jul 21, 2014 0:19:34 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

For around $70 I still think a second-hand netbook with a good keyboard will be your best option.

. Never connect it to any network.
. Use a cheap/free OS and cheap/free editor.
. Save all your work to a USB stick.

Done.

Yeah, this. Or for that matter, go to a thrift store and buy an old desktop, it will be even cheaper.

Then just don't connect to the internet.

[cadriel]

If you can handle the small form factor of an old Asus Eee PC, you can pick one up on eBay for around your price range. They generally had wifi but that's easily disabled. They were big in the heyday of the netbook before tablets caught on. The Eee 700 used a custom Linux distro while the more popular Eee 900 series used a light version of Windows XP. They had USB ports and could probably handle a thumb drive. Download a light word processor then disable the wifi.

[waysoftheearth]

Jul 21, 2014 7:43:17 GMT -6 cadriel said:

If you can handle the small form factor of an old Asus Eee PC, you can pick one up on eBay for around your price range.

With any netbook the keyboard is a critical consideration. Many of them (including, IMHO, the eePCs) have tiny/toy keyboards that are unsuitable for "serious" typing. I guess it depends on the size of your hands but, unless you have child-sized mitts, I'd still recommend the HP mini 2133 or 2140 (these two have the same chasis/keyboard) over any other netbook for its outstanding keyboard.

Of course, you could plug a "real" keyboard into any old netbook, but that's an additional cost. If mobility isn't a requirement, then do as Gronan suggested and go for desktop instead. It will be cheaper, and will have a full-sized keyboard.

Either way, I'd still recommend you go the extra mile and get yourself a quality keyboard. You'll be spending many hours working with it!

[kirbyfan63]

Jul 21, 2014 17:19:40 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Jul 21, 2014 7:43:17 GMT -6 cadriel said:

If you can handle the small form factor of an old Asus Eee PC, you can pick one up on eBay for around your price range.

With any netbook the keyboard is a critical consideration. Many of them (including, IMHO, the eePCs) have tiny/toy keyboards that are unsuitable for "serious" typing. I guess it depends on the size of your hands but, unless you have child-sized mitts, I'd still recommend the HP mini 2133 or 2140 (these two have the same chasis/keyboard) over any other netbook for its outstanding keyboard.

Of course, you could plug a "real" keyboard into any old netbook, but that's an additional cost. If mobility isn't a requirement, then do as Gronan suggested and go for desktop instead. It will be cheaper, and will have a full-sized keyboard.

Either way, I'd still recommend you go the extra mile and get yourself a quality keyboard. You'll be spending many hours working with it!

I would have to second that, as much as I loved my ASUS 900, they keyboard was too small to any serious typing. It work great for writing e-mails or posts on my lunch break, much better than a tablet, but if you are going to do a lot of typing in one sitting, you need a bigger keyboard. 

[bea]

Jul 21, 2014 20:49:02 GMT -6 kirbyfan63 said:

Jul 21, 2014 17:19:40 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

With any netbook the keyboard is a critical consideration. Many of them (including, IMHO, the eePCs) have tiny/toy keyboards that are unsuitable for "serious" typing. I guess it depends on the size of your hands but, unless you have child-sized mitts, I'd still recommend the HP mini 2133 or 2140 (these two have the same chasis/keyboard) over any other netbook for its outstanding keyboard.

Of course, you could plug a "real" keyboard into any old netbook, but that's an additional cost. If mobility isn't a requirement, then do as Gronan suggested and go for desktop instead. It will be cheaper, and will have a full-sized keyboard.

Either way, I'd still recommend you go the extra mile and get yourself a quality keyboard. You'll be spending many hours working with it!

I would have to second that, as much as I loved my ASUS 900, they keyboard was too small to any serious typing. It work great for writing e-mails or posts on my lunch break, much better than a tablet, but if you are going to do a lot of typing in one sitting, you need a bigger keyboard. 

And as always there are exceptions to any rule I *loved* my EEE 900. It was my primary computer for three years. I played-by-email on it, writing hundreds of pages in a year, and I wrote my bachelor thesis on it. To me it only took a few hours to get used to the small keyboard (it's about 95% of full size), despite my largish hands. The notion that it's too small is prevalent, however, so worth considering if you believe it would annoy you.

[waysoftheearth]

I guess it's all down to personal taste, but according to wikipedia the EEE 900's keyboard is 82% as wide a regular keyboard. The EEE 1000 and the HP 2133 (and also the 2140) keyboard is 92% width.

FWIW, I'm still using my trusty 2140--typing this very post on it

[bea]

Ah! I had the numbers all mixed up!

[xerxez]

Hope you found what you needed. I have been typing up some material on the old electric typewriter at our library simply because I love the physical experience of writing

that way and it was like time traveling, it came back to me in minutes as though I'd only quit using the thing days ago. It had actually been over twenty five years. I

also love the font and the way it impresses itself upon the page, I know it's weird but it's pleasing. And I thought I understood your intent in the OP and I wish more

people were reviving these technologies, like vinyl records enthusiasm brought about in that medium. Vinyl never truly went away, that's why it found its way back into

the entertainment stores like Hastings and retail stores are selling old and new records now. Vinyl went from the collector and the nostalgia buff to a mainstream

industry again. This needs to happen again in communications, as does the revival of snail mail. I personally don't have any desire to see us enter a stage where all communications are

monitored and accessible to the "Electric Eye", as Rob Halford so ably sings about in the song of that name by Judas Priest, give it a listen!