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Gary Numan

Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two studio albums with the band, he released his debut solo studio album The Pleasure Principle in 1979, topping the UK Albums Chart. His commercial popularity peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s with hits including "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars" (both of which reached number one on the UK Singles Chart). Numan maintains a cult following. He has sold over 10 million records.

Numan is regarded as a pioneer of electronic music. He developed a signature sound consisting of heavy synthesiser hooks fed through guitar effects pedals, and is also known for his distinctive voice and androgynous "android" persona. In 2017, he received an Ivor Novello Award, the Inspiration Award, from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.

Early life
Gary Anthony James Webb was born on 8 March 1958 in Hammersmith, London. His father was a British Airways bus driver based at Heathrow Airport. He was seven when his family adopted his cousin (father's nephew) John, who would become a musician and play in Numan's backing band. He was educated at Town Farm Junior School in Stanwell; Ashford County Grammar School; and Slough Grammar School, followed by Brooklands Technical College in Weybridge, Surrey. He joined the Air Training Corps as a teenager and briefly held various jobs including forklift truck driver, air conditioning ventilator fitter, and accounts clerk.

When Numan was 15, his father bought him a Gibson Les Paul guitar, which became his most treasured possession. He briefly played in various bands and looked through advertisements in Melody Maker for bands to join. He claims to have unsuccessfully auditioned as guitarist for the then-unknown band the Jam before joining Mean Street and the Lasers, where he met Paul Gardiner. The latter band would soon become Tubeway Army, with his uncle Jess Lidyard on drums and Gardiner on bass. The band signed a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records. His initial pseudonym was Valerian, probably in reference to the hero in French science fiction comic series Valérian and Laureline. He later picked the surname Numan from an advertisement in the yellow pages for a plumber whose surname was Neumann.

1977–1979: Tubeway Army and The Pleasure Principle
Numan came to prominence in the 1970s as lead vocalist, songwriter, and record producer for Tubeway Army. After adopting a punk rock-style they signed a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records and released their debut single "That's Too Bad" in February 1978. It was followed by the recording of an album's worth of demo tapes in March 1978 (released in 1984 as The Plan), and a second single, "Bombers", which like the first single did not chart. The two singles were released again as a gatefold doublepack in 1979, and in 1983 a re-release of "That's Too Bad" reached No. 97 on the UK Singles Chart.

Tubeway Army's self-titled, new wave-oriented debut studio album, released in November 1978, sold out its limited run and introduced Numan's fascination with dystopian science fiction and synthesisers. During the recording of the album Numan found a Moog synthesizer left behind in the studio and the transition towards an electronic sound began. Though the band's third single, the dark-themed and slow-paced "Down in the Park" (1979), did not appear on the charts, it became one of Numan's most enduring and oft-covered songs. It was featured with other contemporary hits on the soundtrack for the American drama film Times Square (1980), and a live version of the song appeared in the British concert film Urgh! A Music War (1982). Following exposure in a television advertisement for Lee Cooper jeans with the jingle "Don't Be a Dummy", Tubeway Army released the single "Are 'Friends' Electric?" in May 1979. After a modest start at the lower reaches of the UK Singles Chart at No. 71, it steadily climbed to No. 1 at the end of June and remained on that position for four consecutive weeks. In July its parent studio album Replicas also reached No. 1 on the albums chart.

At this point Numan was recording his next studio album with a new backing band, having recruited keyboardist Chris Payne and drummer Cedric Sharpley. At the peak of success, Numan opted to premiere four songs in a John Peel session in June 1979 rather than promoting the current album and the Tubeway Army group name was dropped.

In September "Cars" reached No. 1 in the UK. The single found success in North American charts where "Cars" spent 2 weeks at No. 1 on the Canadian RPM charts, and reached No. 9 in the US in 1980. "Cars" and the 1979 studio album The Pleasure Principle were both released under Numan's own stage name. The album reached No. 1 in the UK, and a sell-out tour (The Touring Principle) followed; the concert video it spawned is often cited as the first full-length commercial music video release. The Pleasure Principle was a rock album with no guitars; instead, Numan used synthesisers connected to effects units to achieve a distorted, phased, metallic tone. A second single from the album, "Complex", made it to No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart.

1980–1983: Solo success and new musical directions
In 1980, Numan topped the UK album charts for a third time with Telekon, and the singles "We Are Glass" and "I Die: You Die", released prior to the album, reaching No. 5 and No. 6 on the UK charts. "This Wreckage", the only single taken from the original album release, entered the UK top 20 in December that year. Telekon, the final studio album that Numan retrospectively termed the "Machine" section of his career, reintroduced guitars to Numan's music and featured a wider range of synthesisers. The same year he embarked on his second major tour ("The Teletour") with a more elaborate stage show than The Touring Principle the previous year. In April 1981, Numan decided to retire from touring following his upcoming series of concerts at Wembley Arena, where he was supported by experimental musician Nash the Slash and Shock, a rock/mime/burlesque troupe whose members included Barbie Wilde, Tik and Tok, and Carole Caplin. Living Ornaments '79 and '80, a live two album box-set from the 1979 and 1980 tours, was released at this time, reaching No. 2 in the UK charts. Both albums, also individually released as Living Ornaments '79 and Living Ornaments '80 also charted. The decision to retire would be short-lived.

Departing from the pure electropop that he had been associated with, Numan began experimenting with jazz, funk, and ethereal, rhythmic pop. His first studio album after his farewell concerts was Dance (1981). The album charted at No. 3 on the UK charts, with an eight-week chart run and produced one hit single ("She's Got Claws"), which reached No. 6. The album featured several distinguished guest players; Mick Karn (bass guitar; saxophone) and Rob Dean (guitar) of Japan, Roger Mason (keyboards) of Models, and Roger Taylor (drums) of Queen.

With his former backing band, Chris Payne (keyboards; viola), Russell Bell (guitar), and Ced Sharpley (drums) now reformed as Dramatis, Numan contributed lead vocals to the minor hit "Love Needs No Disguise" from the studio album For Future Reference (1981) and lent lead vocals to the first single released by his long-term bassist Paul Gardiner, "Stormtrooper in Drag", which also made the charts. However, Numan's success began to wane as he was outsold by the Human League, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, and his prior support act, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). With each new studio album, Numan would take on a particular persona, but none seemed to catch audiences' attention like he had been able to in 1979.

Numan's fourth solo studio album I, Assassin (1982) produced the top 10 hit "We Take Mystery (To Bed)", as well as the top 20 singles "Music for Chameleons" and "White Boys and Heroes", the album peaking at No. 8 with a six-week chart run. The heavily percussive funk style made several tracks from the album, such as the 12" version of "Music for Chameleons" and a special remix of "White Boys and Heroes", unexpected successes in the American club scene and in October 1982 he embarked on a US tour.

Warriors (1983) further developed Numan's jazz-influenced style and featured contributions from avant-garde musician Bill Nelson of Be-Bop Deluxe (who fell out with Numan during recording and chose to be uncredited as the album's co-producer), and saxophonist Dick Morrissey (who also performed on The Fury, Strange Charm and Outland). The album peaked at No. 12, produced two hit singles including the top 20 title-track and, like I, Assassin, spent six weeks in the charts. Warriors was the last album Numan recorded for Beggars Banquet Records, and was supported by a 40-date UK tour (again with support from robotic mime and music duo Tik and Tok).

1984–1990: Record label foundation and collaborations
Numan subsequently issued a series of albums and singles on his own record label, Numa. The first studio album released, 1984's Berserker, was Numan's first foray into music computers and samplers (in this case, the PPG Wave). The album was accompanied by a new, blue-and-white colour scheme and visual (including Numan himself, with blue hair), as well as a tour, a live album, video, EP, and the title track as a single. The track charted within the UK top 40. Despite this, the album divided critics and fans, and ultimately performed poorly. Numan cites many reasons for this, including distribution issues.

A collaboration with Bill Sharpe (of Shakatak) as Sharpe & Numan, in 1985, was more successful; in March of that year, the single "Change Your Mind" reached No. 17 on the UK Singles Chart. A few months later, the live album White Noise (recorded during the Berserker Tour) and a live EP with tracks taken from it (titled The Live EP) reached No. 29 and 27 on the charts, respectively.

Numan's next studio album, The Fury (1985), charted slightly higher than Berserker, breaking the top 30. Again, the album heralded a change of image, this time featuring Numan in a white suit and red bow tie. The three singles released from the album ("Your Fascination", "Call Out the Dogs" and "Miracles") all charted within the top 50 on the UK charts.

The following year, Numan released two top-30 UK singles, "This Is Love" in April 1986, and "I Can't Stop" in June that year; the subsequent album, Strange Charm, was released later that year, but only spent two weeks on the albums chart, where it peaked at No. 59. In November of that year, a version of the song "I Still Remember", from the previous album, was released as a charity single, but stalled at No. 74 on the singles chart.

Further collaborations with Bill Sharpe spawned two more Sharpe & Numan hits with "New Thing from London Town", peaking at No. 52 in 1986, and "No More Lies" at No. 35 in 1988. In 1987, Numan performed vocals for three singles by Radio Heart, a project of brothers Hugh and David Nicholson (formerly of Marmalade and Blue), which charted with varying success ("Radio Heart", No. 35 in the UK, "London Times", No. 48, "All Across the Nation", No. 81). An album was also released, credited to "Radio Heart featuring Gary Numan", with Numan only appearing on three tracks; the record failed to chart. Also in 1987, Numan's old label, Beggars Banquet, released the best-of compilation Exhibition, which reached No. 43 on the UK Albums Chart, and a remix of "Cars". The remix, titled "Cars (E Reg Model)", charted at No. 16, marking Numan's final Top 20 hit (until the same song was re-released in 1996).

Numa Records, which had been launched during a flurry of idealistic excitement, folded after the release of Numan's 1986 studio album Strange Charm. Numan would reopen the record label in 1992, yet it was again shuttered in 1996. In addition to Numa Records' commercial failure, Numan's own amassed fortune (since the late 1970s), which he estimated to be around £4.5 million, was drained. He then signed a recording contract with I.R.S. Records for the release of his final studio album of the 1980s, Metal Rhythm (1988), which also sold relatively poorly. For its American release, the record label edited the album's title to New Anger after the lead single's title, and also changed the album colour from black to blue and remixed several of its tracks, against Numan's wishes. In 1989, the Sharpe & Numan album Automatic was released through Polydor Records, though this too failed to garner much commercial success, briefly entering the charts and peaking at No. 59.

1991–2001: New musical direction and critical acclaim
In 1991, Numan ventured into film-scoring by co-composing the music for The Unborn with Michael R. Smith (the score was later released as the 1995 album Human). After Outland (1991), another critical and commercial disappointment and his second and last studio album with I.R.S., Numan reactivated Numa Records, under which he would release his next two studio albums. He supported Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (who had opened for him in 1979) on a 1993 arena tour.

By 1994, Numan decided to stop attempting to crack the pop market and concentrate instead on exploring more personal themes, including his vocal atheism. His future wife Gemma encouraged him to strip away the influences of the more recent years. Numan thus sought a grittier, more industrial tone for his songwriting on the album Sacrifice, on which, for the first time, he played almost all the instruments himself. Nine Inch Nails (NIN), who were influenced by Numan's music, and other bands with industrial tendencies were contemporaneously becoming famous, and Sacrifice received critical acclaim. According to Numan, the influence was mutual. He cites "Closer" as his favourite Nine Inch Nails song, and has said "Head Like a Hole" has "the best chorus ever". Depeche Mode's album Songs of Faith and Devotion that came out during the recording of Sacrifice became a massive influence on Numan that both musically and lyrically inspired his new, darker direction.

Sacrifice was the final studio album that Numan made before shutting down Numa Records permanently. His next two studio albums, Exile (1997) and Pure (2000), were well received and significantly helped to restore his critical reputation, as did a tribute album dedicated to Numan, Random. Random was released shortly before Exile and featured artists, such as Damon Albarn and Jesus Jones, who had been influenced by Numan. Numan toured the US in support of Exile, his first stateside concerts since the early 1980s.

2002-2008: Further works and return to chart success
In 2002, Numan enjoyed chart success once again with the single "Rip", reaching No. 29 on the UK Singles Chart, and again in 2003 with the Gary Numan vs Rico single "Crazier", which reached No. 13 in the UK charts. Rico also worked on the 2003 remix album Hybrid which featured reworkings of older songs in a more contemporary industrial style as well as new material. Other artists and producers who contributed on these remixes included Curve, Flood, Andy Gray, Alan Moulder, New Disease, and Sulpher. 2003 saw Numan performing the vocals on "Pray for You", the single from the Plump DJs studio album Eargasm, which reached No. 89 on the UK Top 100 Chart. In 2005, Numan took control of his own business affairs again with the launch of his recording label, Mortal Records.

On 13 March 2006, Numan's studio album, Jagged, was released. An album launch gig took place at The Forum, London on 18 March followed by UK, European and US tours in support of the release. Numan also launched a Jagged website to showcase the album, and made plans to have his 1981 farewell concert (previously released as Micromusic on VHS) issued on DVD by November 2006 as well as releasing the DVD version of the Jagged album launch gig. Numan undertook a brief Telekon 'Classic Album' tour in the UK in December 2006, performing at Rock City, the Kentish Town Forum and Club Academy.

Numan contributed vocals to four tracks on the April 2007 release of the debut solo studio album by Ade Fenton, Artificial Perfect, on his new industrial/electronic label, Submission, including "The Leather Sea", "Slide Away", "Recall", and the first single to be taken from the album, "Healing". The second single to be released in the UK was "The Leather Sea" on 30 July 2007, which charted.

He sold out a 15-date UK and Ireland tour in spring 2008, during which he performed his 1979 number-one studio album Replicas in its entirety, and all the Replicas-era music including B-sides. The successful tour reflected the resurging popularity of electropop in the UK and coincided with his 50th birthday and 30th anniversary of the original release of Replicas.

In November 2007, Numan confirmed via his website that work on a new studio album, with the working title of Splinter, would be under way throughout 2008, after finishing an alternate version of Jagged (called Jagged Edge) and the CD of unreleased songs from his previous three studio albums (released in 2011 as Dead Son Rising ). Numan released his subsequent album, Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind), in 2013.

2009–present
Numan was set to perform a small number of American live dates in April 2010, including a Coachella Festival appearance in California, but had to cancel because air travel in Europe was halted by the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud. As a result, the tour was not only postponed but expanded, and his Pleasure Principle 30th Anniversary Tour's American and Mexican dates began on 17 October 2010, at Firestone Live in Orlando, Florida.

Numan toured Australia in May 2011 performing his album The Pleasure Principle in its entirety to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. Joining him on tour was Australian electronic band Severed Heads, coming out of retirement especially for the shows.

Numan lent his vocals to the track "My Machines" on Battles's second studio album Gloss Drop (2011). He was chosen by Battles to perform at the ATP Nightmare Before Christmas festival that they co-curated in December 2011 in Minehead, England. Numan's studio album Dead Son Rising was released on 16 September 2011, which had a full UK tour split in two-halves, 15–21 September and 7–11 December. Both parts were supported by Welsh soloist Jayce Lewis; in an interview during the tour Numan said Lewis was "one of the most popular" support acts he had toured with. Numan later published some of his tour diary online.

Numan provided narration for Aurelio Voltaire's 5th short film in his ChimeraScope series, Odokuro in 2011, which won 12 awards and was shown as a selection at numerous film festivals between 2011 and 2013.

The studio album Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind), was released on 14 October 2013. It reached the UK Top 20, his first album to do so for 30 years. It was promoted by an extensive US, Canada, UK and Ireland tour which continued in 2014 to include Israel, New Zealand, Australia and Europe. A further US leg took place in late 2014.

In June 2014, Numan collaborated with Jayce Lewis on the track "Redesign" which originally featured on the Welshman's Protafield album Nemesis The same album was re-released as a Special Edition under Lewis's solo name in 2018. Numan provided vocals for the song "Long Way Down", composed by Masafumi Takada with lyrics written by Rich Dickerson, for the survival horror video game The Evil Within, which was released on 14 October 2014. Numan performed a sold-out, one-off live show in London in November 2014 at the Hammersmith Apollo supported by Gang of Four.

Numan collaborated with the industrial pop group VOWWS for "Losing Myself in You" on their debut studio album The Great Sun.

On 6 May 2016, Numan was one of several collaborators on Jean-Michel Jarre's eighteenth studio album Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise, with the track "Here for You", cowritten by Jarre and Numan.

On 10 May 2016, Numan was named the recipient of the 2016 Moog Innovation Award by Moog Music. On 18 May 2017, Numan received an Ivor Novello Inspiration Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.

In 2017, Numan released the single "My Name Is Ruin" and went on a European tour September. Numan's studio album Savage (Songs from a Broken World) was released on 15 September and charted at number two in the UK. He was the winner of the 2017 T3 tech legends award.

On 24 September 2018, Numan's tour bus hit and killed an elderly man in Cleveland, Ohio, US. The driver was not immediately charged. Numan was scheduled to appear at the Cleveland House of Blues that evening but cancelled the show for being "inappropriate" in light of the day's tragedy.

His next studio album Intruder was released on 21 May 2021. The title track was released earlier, on 11 January 2021. Numan discussed its genesis with writer Guy Mankowski, who has a chapter on Numan's legacy in his book Albion's Secret History: Snapshots of England's Pop Rebels and Outsiders, as part of an interview series on influential English artists for Zer0 Books.

Following his US Intruder tour in late 2021 and early 2022, Numan began a 17-venue UK tour between late April and late May 2022.

Numan performed at the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, California on 20 May 2023. After a nearby lightning storm led to an early evacuation, truncating Iggy Pop's set and cancelling Siouxsie Sioux's headlining set entirely, a second show was quickly announced for the following day, with Siouxsie, Pop and Numan returning.

In October 2023, Numan performed a series of eight acoustic gigs, playing songs from his repertoire in a new way in smaller, intimate settings. Locations included Wylam Brewery, Newcastle, Manchester Cathedral, and Hackney Church in London.

In February 2024, Numan announced a UK tour to celebrate the 45th anniversary of his 1979 albums Replicas and The Pleasure Principle. Including shows in Norwich, Sheffield, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, London, Bristol, Cardiff, Bournemouth, Birmingham and Nottingham between May 19 and June 1.

Artistry and image
In the late 1970s, Numan began developing his style. According to Numan, this was an unintentional result of acne; before an appearance on Top of the Pops, "I had spots everywhere, so they slapped about half an inch of white make-up on me before I'd even walked in the door. And my eyes were like pissholes in the snow, so they put black on there. My so-called image fell into place an hour before going on the show." His "wooden" stage presence was, in his words, a result of "incredible self-consciousness" and "incompetence – I didn't know to move on stage". He became enamoured by the idea of "being cold about everything, not letting emotions get to you, or presenting a front of not feeling".

Initially, Numan used his invention of the mysterious fantasy character "Mach-man", a machine in human skin dressed all in black, which developed from short stories he wrote at school, as his stage persona. But this image was replaced in 1981 by a totally different "gangster"-look inspired by a television programme on 1930s eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes.

Later in the 1980s, Numan adopted a new visual image for each new album, such as the Mad Max-influenced image for Warriors, the white-skinned, white-clad "Iceman" with blue hair and make-up for the 1984 Berserker album and tour, the white suit and red bow-tie image for The Fury, and a Blade Runner-influenced image for Strange Charm.

A prolific songwriter, Numan has as of 2021 written about 400 songs. His starting point is usually a piano to work out melodies and chord structures. Most of the songs on his early albums were written on a piano his parents had bought him: later in his career he has used a piano preset on the computer as a starting point. However, his biggest hit "Cars" was unconventionally written on a bass guitar.

Numan's recognisable vocals have become one of his trademarks, along with his androgynous "android" stage persona.

Musical influences
In a 2012 interview, Numan spoke about the music that has had an influence on him over the years. As a teenager he was fan of T.Rex, David Bowie and Queen. His band Tubeway Army started in the punk rock-vein in 1977, but Numan later said that the punk rock style was adopted with the sole intention to obtain a recording contract. Ultravox's 1978 album Systems of Romance was the main influence behind Tubeway Army's transition into an electronic sound. Numan cited the album, and particularly the song "Slow Motion", as the blueprint for what he wanted to achieve. Moving away from the commercially successful synth-pop on the 1979 albums Replicas and The Pleasure Principle to a more introspective and partly ambient sound, David Bowie's collaborations with Brian Eno, the band Japan and Lou Reed's Berlin album has been cited as some of the influences that informed Numan's 1981 album Dance. At this point, jazz and funk influences became prominent in Numan's music, as on the single "She's Got Claws" and his 1982 album I, Assassin. His 1983 album Warriors started as a collaboration with Bill Nelson, guitarist in Bebop Deluxe, which was another of Numan's favourite bands in the 1970s. Adopting a heavier, more aggresive sound, the production of his 1984 album Berserker took influence from Trevor Horn's production of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Wanting to broaden his musical output, Numan's mid- to late 1980's releases featured a jazz-funk style, blending an industrial edge with funk and synth-pop sensibilities. Following the release of two commercially and critically unsuccessful pop and funk influenced albums in the early 1990's, Numan found new pivotal influences in Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode's 1993 album Songs of Faith and Devotion that inspired him to move into a darker sound that became the trademark of his later career.

Legacy
Within the UK's burgeoning synth-pop scene, Numan was the first artist to achieve mainstream notoriety. His music and live performances met with censure from critics; he also faced condemnation from the Musicians' Union (MU), who said he was putting "proper" musicians out of work. Andy McCluskey of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) observed "nasty, nasty, vitriolic journalism" directed at Numan, who was dismissed as "pretentious" and "pseudo-intellectual". He nevertheless generated an army of fans calling themselves "Numanoids", providing him with a fanbase which maintained their support through the latter half of the 1980s, when his fortunes began to fall. He maintains a cult following, and has sold over 10 million records.

Numan is considered a pioneer of electronic music;  Nightshift identified Numan, and fellow late 1970s debutants OMD and the Human League, as "the holy trinity of synth-pop". He has been credited as a key influence by fellow English musician Kim Wilde as she was working on her debut single "Kids in America" with her brother Ricky. Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears, another new wave act of the 1980s, cited Numan's style as one that inspired them while recording their debut studio album The Hurting. Since the 1990s Numan has been cited as a major influence by a variety of bands and artists from hip hop to industrial rock and Britpop, including Afrika Bambaataa, Fear Factory, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields and Damon Albarn of Blur. Prince was quoted saying: "There are still people trying to work out what a genius Gary Numan is."

Fear Factory produced a cover of "Cars" (featuring a prominent guest appearance by Numan himself) for the digipak version of their third studio album, Obsolete (1999). Numan had become acknowledged and respected by his peers, with such musicians as Dave Grohl (of Foo Fighters, with whom he covered "Down in the Park" on 1996's Songs in the Key of X, and Nirvana), Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails, whose 2018 leg of the Cold and Black and Infinite tour concluded with a guest performance by Numan, who Reznor described as "vitally important and a huge inspiration"),  and Marilyn Manson  (who released his own cover version of "Down in the Park" as the B-side of his band's 1995 studio album Lunchbox) proclaiming his work an influence.

The duo Basement Jaxx had a hit in 2002 with "Where's Your Head At", which relied on a sample of Numan's "M.E."—from The Pleasure Principle—for its hook. Nine Inch Nails covered the song "Metal" on The Fragile remix album Things Falling Apart, as did Afrika Bambaataa (with Numan himself) on the studio album Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light. "Cars" remains Numan's most enduring song; it was a hit again in 1987 (remixed by Zeus B. Held) and 1996, in the latter case thanks to an appearance in an advert for Carling Brewery. In 2000, DJ Armand van Helden sampled the track in his single "Koochy". In 2002, English girl group the Sugababes scored a No. 1 with "Freak Like Me", a mashup of Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" and "Are "Friends" Electric?" by Numan's Tubeway Army.

Personal life
In 1997, Numan married Gemma O'Neill, a member of his fan club from Sidcup, south-east London. They have three daughters: Raven, Persia, and Echo. His daughter Persia, at the age of 11, contributed vocals to Numan's 2017 song "My Name Is Ruin" and appeared in its music video. Numan and his family lived in Essex, then Heathfield and Waldron in East Sussex, and in October 2012 moved to Santa Monica, California.

At age 15, after a series of outbursts in which he would "smash things up, scream and shout, get in people's faces and break stuff", Numan was prescribed antidepressants and anxiolytics. In the 1990s, his wife suggested he had Asperger syndrome; after reading about the syndrome and taking a series of online tests, he agreed. It was discussed when he was younger, though he was not confident in the diagnostic criteria of the time. Conversely, he said in an April 2018 interview with The Guardian that he had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at the age of 14. In a 2001 interview, he said, "Polite conversation has never been one of my strong points. Just recently I actually found out that I'd got a mild form of Asperger's syndrome which basically means I have trouble interacting with people. For years, I couldn't understand why people thought I was arrogant, but now it all makes more sense."

Numan published his autobiography, Praying to the Aliens, in 1997 (updated in 1998), in collaboration with Steve Malins, who also wrote the liner notes for most of the CD reissues of Numan's albums in the late 1990s, as well as executive producing the Hybrid album in 2003. An updated autobiography, (R)evolution: The Autobiography, was published on 22 October 2020 and brings his career up to date from the earlier Praying to the Aliens.

Numan is an atheist.

He was an outspoken supporter of the Conservative Party and Margaret Thatcher after her election as Prime Minister. He later expressed regret for giving his public support, calling it "a noose around my neck". He has previously said that he considers himself neither left- nor right-wing and that he did not support Tony Blair or David Cameron. He also said, "I'm not socialist, I know that. I don't believe in sharing my money." Numan is not overly politically engaged and distances himself from political commentary.

Aviation career
Numan joined the Air Training Corps as a teenager, when he wanted to be either a pilot or a pop star. In 1978, he started learning to fly at Blackbushe Airport, but the success of his music career in 1979 meant that obtaining his pilot's licence was delayed until 17 December 1980. The following day; 18 December 1980, Numan bought his first aeroplane for £12,000; a Cessna 182 Skylane. On 1 July 1981, Numan founded Numanair, a small charter flight company operating from Blackbushe, and acquired a Cessna 210 Centurion (registered G-OILS) and a Piper PA-31 Navajo (registered G-NMAN). He also indulged his passion for motor racing in 1981 by sponsoring Mike Mackonochie who drove a Van Diemen RF81 in Numanair livery in the Formula Ford 1600 class.

In November and December 1981, Numan successfully flew around the world in his Piper PA-31 Navajo with co-pilot Bob Thompson on their second attempt. The first attempt, in the Cessna 210 Centurion, had ended in India with Numan and Thompson being arrested on suspicion of smuggling and spying. This aircraft was written off on 29 January 1982 when it ran out of fuel near Southampton and made a forced landing while Numan was flying on it as a passenger.

In 1984, Numan bought a Harvard T-6 trainer aircraft registered G-AZSC and had the aircraft painted to resemble a Japanese "Zero" fighter. He also gained a display pilot's licence and flew the machine on the UK air display circuit. He and friend Norman Lees, who also owned a Harvard, formed the Radial Pair, performing synchronised aerobatics from the 1992 air display season. Later they teamed up with other Harvard owners to fly up to five aircraft as the Harvard Formation Team with Numan choreographing their aerobatic routines.

Numan held licences for piston and turbine helicopters and had a fixed wing multi engined rating. He was an aerobatic flying instructor and was appointed by the Civil Aviation Authority as an air display pilot evaluator. Then in 2005, after several of his friends and colleagues were killed in unrelated flying accidents, he gave up flying. In an interview in 2009 he said "I loved going to air shows, you'd bond really tightly with your team mates – it's an extreme thing to be doing, and you trust your life to them. And then it ended. I'd turn up and not know anyone. It got depressing. I'd sit down in the pilot's tent and there'd be all these people I'd not recognise. You'd look forward to someone turning up to have a chat with them, and they'd be dead."

Numanair continued operating but after 31 years, with Numan and his family emigrating to the US, it was dissolved on 18 June 2013.

Discography

 * Tubeway Army

 * Tubeway Army (1978)
 * Replicas (1979)

 * Solo

 * The Pleasure Principle (1979)
 * Telekon (1980)
 * Dance (1981)
 * I, Assassin (1982)
 * Warriors (1983)
 * Berserker (1984)
 * The Fury (1985)
 * Strange Charm (1986)
 * Metal Rhythm (1988) (New Anger in the U.S.)
 * Automatic (1989) (with Bill Sharpe as Sharpe & Numan)

 * Outland (1991)
 * Machine + Soul (1992)
 * Sacrifice (1994) (Dawn in the U.S.)
 * Human (1995) (with Michael R. Smith)
 * Exile (1997)
 * Pure (2000)
 * Jagged (2006)
 * Dead Son Rising (2011)
 * Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind) (2013)
 * Savage (Songs from a Broken World) (2017)
 * Intruder (2021)

title: Gary Numan


text:
Psion Organiser

Psion Organiser was the brand name of a range of pocket computers developed by the British company Psion in the 1980s. The Organiser I (launched in 1984) and Organiser II (launched in 1986) had a characteristic hard plastic sliding cover protecting a 6×6 keypad instead of a computer keyboard, with letters arranged alphabetically.

The Organiser II competed with the Filofax and can be considered the first usable electronic organizer or personal digital assistant (PDA) in that it combined an electronic diary and searchable address database in a small, portable device.

Production of consumer hand-held devices by Psion has now ceased; the company, after corporate changes, now concentrates on hardware and software for industrial and commercial data-collection applications.

On an episode of The Gadget Show, first aired 30 March 2009, the Psion was pitted against the BlackBerry for a place on the show's Hall of Fame. Whilst the Psion was highly praised as a device that pioneered portable computing, host Jon Bentley ultimately gave the accolade to the BlackBerry.

As of autumn 2017 several software features and hardware devices are still being developed and are available including a JavaScript Emulator, Parallel Interface, USB Commslink, 32 kilobyte (KB) and 256 KB RAMpaks, and 512 KB FlashPak.

Organiser I
Launched in 1984, the Psion Organiser was the "world's first practical pocket computer". Based on an 8-bit Hitachi 6301-family processor, running at 0.9 MHz, with 4 KB of read-only memory (ROM) and 2 KB of static RAM and has a one-row monochrome liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. The size with the case closed is 142 × 78 × 29.3 mm, and the mass is 225 grams.

A Byte reviewer described the Organiser's software as a "clever design ... for fast and foolproof use". He approved of the consistent user interface across applications and reported that without documentation he was able to learn how to do everything except program in 15 minutes. The machine provided a simple flat-file database, calculator and clock, and had no operating system (OS). The Organiser I supported removable storage write once read many (write-once) devices, which used erasable programmable read-only memory EPROM storage. The device can host two of these, named Datapaks (stylized as DATAPAK, or simply PAK), to which it can write data, but which must be removed from the device and erased by exposure to ultraviolet light before they can be re-used. As Psion had patented the use of EPROMS as a storage device, it was impossible for other device makers to copy this unusual approach to mobile storage.

Software supplied on Datapak included a crude programming language named POPL, in which end-users could write their own programs. Software Datapaks titled Science, Maths and Finance contained the POPL programming language editor, interpreter and runtime system and extended the built-in calculator by adding named functions. These Datapaks also contained different sets of application software written in the POPL language.

A far more sophisticated programming tool was later made available with the implementation of the Forth language, but was available to registered professional developers rather than end users. The Psion Forth Development System for the Organiser I was a powerful set of IBM PC-based cross-development tools for producing Forth application software, including a Forth compiler. The Forth system on the Organiser I had a compiler to intermediate code, interpreter and runtime, and had several unusual design features one being that it could interpret – that is, read and execute – Forth intermediate code directly in place on a Datapak, rather than needing to copy it into precious RAM first, despite the Datapaks not being execute-in-place memory-mapped.

Software developed by Psion as part of the Organiser I project, and application software after its launch, was written in 6301 assembly language, in POPL, and in other custom-designed languages. Assembly language development at Psion was carried out using cross-development tools, including a cross assembler and linker, all of which ran on a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VAX.

Application developers writing in 6301 assembly struggled with the small amount of RAM (2 KB) and the lack of an operating system. Another difficulty for developers was with the performance limits of the earliest Datapaks, which used a serial-access internal architecture, instead of random access. Retrieving, for example, byte 2000 from a Datapak meant issuing successive hardware commands to either step from the current read position one address place at time until position 2000 was reached or, in the worst case, resetting the read position to zero and then issuing a step-forward command 2000 times.

The Hitachi 6301 processor is an enhanced development based on the Motorola 6801 implemented in complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS), with several extra instructions, various hardware system on a chip (SoC) facilities on-chip, power management and support for a sleep state. The particular variant chosen also had 4 KB of masked ROM on-chip, so an external ROM was unneeded on the board.

Having fully static RAM and a processor which clock could be frozen without losing state meant very long battery life, measured in weeks or even months. Minimal power use was aided by the processor being frozen whenever there was no work to do, plus a deeper sleep mode, which turned off the display.

The machine lacked a full independently battery-backed, date-time real-time hardware clock, instead it had a simple hardware counter. While the machine was sleeping, the counter counted 1,024 seconds and then woke the machine very briefly, so that software could add 1,024 seconds to a record of the time held in RAM. This meant that when sleeping the machine woke very fleetingly every 17 minutes 4 seconds.

The original 1984 price was £99 GBP or $199 CAD and included one Datapak and one software Datapak, the Utility pack. This latter adds scientific and trigonometric functions to the otherwise basic calculator routines.

Organiser II
In 1986, the successful Organiser II introduced many hardware improvements, a better keyboard and display, a much larger ROM and either 8 KB (CM Model), 16 or 32 KB (XP Model), 32 or 64 KB (later LZ Model) of battery-backed RAM, and featured a capable newly designed single-tasking operating system. The first Organiser II models featured a two-line display. The new model supported several different types of improved Datapaks, containing either EPROM or battery-backed RAM storage, each storing between 8 KB and 128 KB of data. Later electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) flashpaks, and random-access memory (RAM) RAMpaks, were added to the range, able to store up to 256 KB on each extension slot.

The machine had far more application functionality, including many built-in application programs, an easy-to-use database, a diary, and an alarm clock, and featured end-user programmability in the form of the successful then-named Organiser Programming Language (OPL), a BASIC-like language, which was compiled to intermediate code, in contrast to the interpreters, which were commonly available for other consumer computers of the time. More advanced users could edit the system machine-code routines, either by direct machine code or by calls from OPL, could manipulate the built-in address database, and create their own.

The Organiser II was widely used for commercial applications in companies such as Marks & Spencer, where it was used on the shop floor, with their branding instead of Psion's and with only limited keys visible to the end user. It was also used in the world's first large-scale application of mobile technology in government, where over 3,000 were used for benefit calculations by the Employment Services department of the UK government. It proved popular with surveyors who interfaced it with electronic theodolites, which proved to be the precursor to the now popular total station.

The Organiser II also had an external device slot, into which various plug-in modules could be fitted, including a device that provided an RS-232 port (named CommsLink), thus enabling it to communicate with other devices or computers. This top slot also supported various other hardware additions, such as telephone dialers, a speech synthesiser, barcode reader, and a dedicated thermal printer. This latter was used by several banks as a counter-top exchange-rate calculator for some years. As it was easy to get hardware specifications, many bespoke devices were developed by small companies such as analog-to-digital converters (A/D) and even an interface to the full range of Mitutoyo measuring equipment, allowing it to be used in quality control for various car manufacturers. Later models in the Organiser II range offered other hardware improvements, with 4-line displays, and also models were introduced with 32, 64 and 96 KB RAM.

Post production enthusiasts and developments
In the autumn of 1996, when Psion PLC had moved their focus away from the Organiser II onto the newer clamshell series devices (below) and had almost ceased support for the Organiser II, Dave Woolnough created the Psion Organiser II Homepage to fill the gap, stating "Considering that more than 500,000 series II Organisers were produced, there must be many people still using this wonderful machine". The original Org2.com In the summer of 1997, Jaap Scherphuis joined the site as software specialist and soon became fully responsible for maintaining the web pages on a day-to-day basis. Dave wrote about Scherphuis "A Remarkable Psion Programmer". The Psion 2 archive had a large proportion of programmes written by Scherphuis, many written in machine code.In the spring of 2002 Boris Cornet took over as site maintainer/editor. Later that year he replaced the chat (bulletin board) with the now defunct Psion Organiser II Forum. When he died in 2012, the administrative duties for the forum were taken over by a power user MIKESAN who ran it until the spring of 2020 when he developed a terminal illness and the site became inaccessible. In January 2021 Olivier Gossuin, a Belgian enthusiast, launched a new Organiser II User Forum which in turn became inaccessible in 2022. In January 2023 a Canadian enthusiast Yves Martin provided space on his business server for a replacement forum with a long time enthusiast Martin Reid helping with the administration.

Another legacy that Boris Cornet left Organiser II users is Psi2Win, the Windows PC comms link server. This Windows-friendly server was developed using Jaaps' reverse engineered comms link protocol. Boris always considered his Comms Server Psi2Win to be in permanent state of 'beta testing' but with his sad passing it is no longer being developed. With this in mind the author of ORG-link has further developed and released ORG-Link_V2 an Organiser II Comms Link Server that works in all Windows versions 32 and 64 bit. In the winter of 2013, Jaap created his web site with the aim "to be an archive of Psion Organiser II information and software that might otherwise be abandoned and lost". Hardware developments have continued with Olivier Gossuin, a Belgian enthusiast who has created a microUSB CommsLink, 256 KB RAMPak, 512 KB FlashPak, and microUSB Power Supply. These, with other Organiser II hardware and software, are still available from the West Yorkshire Psion Store. Massimo Cellin created the Psion Facebook group in the autumn of 2015, servicing all the Psion products including the Organiser II. Members of the Facebook group include the former editor of IPSO FACTO, the 1980s and 1990s newsletters of the International Psion Pocket Computers User Group, copies of which are still available from Scherphuis' archive.

Table of models
* Maximum size of Datapak supported

** LA model still carried the XP label on its casing

In addition to the above, many other industrial, one-off and special edition models were released, including a special edition with transparent housing. Some of these models have radically different keyboard layouts.

Subsequent hand-held devices
The name "Organiser" was not used for later Psion handhelds, such as the SIxteen-Bit Organiser (SIBO) family Psion MC400 laptop, the Psion Series 3 and the 32-bit Psion Series 5 machines, which were of a clamshell design with a QWERTY keyboard. As to hardware architecture and operating system, these had no links to the earlier Organiser range, other than the end-user programming language, which shared a great deal of structure with OPL.

The SIBO family, and the improved version of the OPL language (with window and focus controls), was replaced in 1997 by a new ARM architecture-based operating system EPOC32 written in C++; the latter was later sold as the Symbian operating system, which until 2010 was the most widely used OS in smartphones, being in 2011 displaced by Google's Android OS. This change was more significant than appeared at the time. The consumer-grade high-level programming language still shares features with OPL, but the developer toolkits were from then on focused on programmers familiar with C and only the Symbian operating system remains.

The first similar device made in the USA did not appear until 1985 and was manufactured by Validec.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Psion Organiser


text:
Psion (company)

Psion PLC was a designer and manufacturer of mobile handheld computers for commercial and industrial uses. The company was headquartered in London, England, with major operations in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and other company offices in Europe, the United States, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. It was a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Psion's operational business was formed in September 2000 from a merger of Psion and Canadian-based Teklogix Inc., and was a global provider of solutions for mobile computing and wireless data collection. The Group's products and services included rugged mobile hardware, secure software and wireless networks, professional services, and support programs. Psion worked with its clients in the area of burgeoning technologies, including imaging, voice recognition, and radio-frequency identification (RFID). They had operations worldwide in 14 countries, and customers in more than 80 countries.

Formed in 1980, Psion first achieved success as a consumer hardware company that developed the Psion Organiser and a wide range of more sophisticated clamshell personal digital assistants (PDAs). Psion either closed or disposed of all its prior operations and then focused on rugged mobile computing systems. It withdrew from the consumer device market in 2001. Motorola Solutions announced in June 2012 that it had agreed to acquire Psion for $200 million.

Beginnings (1980–1984)
Psion was established in 1980 as a software house with a close relationship with Sinclair Research. The company developed games and other software for the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum home computers, released under the Sinclair/Psion brand. Psion's games for the ZX Spectrum included Chess, Chequered Flag, Flight Simulation and the Horace series. Psion Chess was later ported to other platforms, including the early Macintosh in 1984.

Early software releases for the ZX Spectrum included titles such as VU-Calc, VU-File and VU-3D, along with dozens of other titles.

The company name is an acronym standing for "Potter Scientific Instruments", after the company's founder, David Potter. The acronym PSI was already in use elsewhere in the world so "ON" was added to make the name unique. Potter remained managing director until 1999 and was chairman of the company until late 2009.

In early 1983, Sinclair approached Psion regarding the development of a suite of office applications for the forthcoming Sinclair QL personal computer. Psion were already working on a project in this area, and when the QL was launched in 1984 it was bundled with Quill, Archive, Abacus and Easel; respectively a word processor, database, spreadsheet, and business graphics application. These were later ported to DOS and made available for the IBM PC and ACT's Sirius and Apricot computers, collectively called PC-Four, or Xchange in an enhanced version. Xchange was also available for ICL's One Per Desk computer, which was based on the QL.

Psion Organiser (1984)
In 1984, Psion first entered the hardware market with the Psion Organiser, an early handheld computer, in appearance resembling a pocket calculator with an alphanumeric computer keyboard. In 1986, the vastly improved Psion Organiser II was released, and was assembled by Speedboard Assembly Services. Its success led the company into a decade long period of Psion Computer and operating system development. It included the simple-to-use Open Programming Language (OPL) for database programming, which sparked a large independent software market.

EPOC (1987)
In 1987, Psion began developing its SIxteen Bit Organiser (SIBO) family of devices and its own new multitasking operating system named EPOC, to run its third generation product, Laptops (MC), industrial handhelds (HC and Workabout) and PDA (Series 3) products.

It is often rumoured that EPOC stands for "Electronic Piece Of Cheese" however Colly Myers, who was Symbian's CEO from founding until 2002, said in an interview that it stood for 'epoch' and nothing more. This development effort produced the clamshell QWERTY-based Psion Series 3 palmtops (1993–98), which sold in the hundreds of thousands, and the Psion MC-series laptops, which sold poorly compared to the DOS-based laptops of the era.

A second effort, dubbed Project Protea, produced the Psion Series 5 for sale in 1997, a completely new product from the 32-bit hardware upwards through the OS, UI, and applications. It is still remembered for its high quality keyboard which, despite its size, allowed for touch-typing. However, the new feel of the product, and the removal of certain familiar quirks, alienated loyal Series 3 users, who tended to stick with their PDAs rather than upgrade.

In 1999, Psion released the Psion Series 7, which was much like a larger version of the Series 5, but with a double-size VGA-resolution screen that featured 256 colours (the Series 5 had a half-VGA screen with 16 grey shades). It was followed by the very similar Psion netBook.

Psion was being challenged by the arrival of cheaper PDAs such as the Palm Pilot, and PocketPCs running Microsoft's Windows CE, and in 2003, Psion released a Netbook Pro running Windows CE .NET 4.2 instead of EPOC.

Symbian and telephony (1998)
The 32-bit EPOC developed by Project Protea resulted in the eventual formation of Symbian Ltd. in June 1998 in conjunction with Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola. The OS was renamed the Symbian Operating System and was envisioned as the base for a new range of smartphones. Psion transferred 130 key staff to the new company and retained a 31% shareholding in the spun-out business. By 2007, the Symbian operating system powered around 125 million mobile phones, including many Nokia models and the Sony Ericsson P900 series.

Psion had previously sought to expand into mobile telephony itself, having engaged in talks to acquire Amstrad – mainly for its Dancall subsidiary – in 1996. Although Amstrad's owner and founder, Alan Sugar, had reportedly been seeking to sell the entire business, no agreement could apparently be made on a price or on "a plan for the disposal of the other parts of the Amstrad Group". This setback left Psion promising "to introduce GSM-based products during 1997". Meanwhile, Psion did license EPOC to Digital Equipment Corporation so that the system could be ported to Digital's StrongARM processor.

The development of new and updated products by Psion slowed after the Symbian spin-off. Other products failed or had limited success; these included Psion Siemens' GSM device, a Series 5 based set-top box, the Wavefinder DAB radio, and an attempt to add Dragon's speech recognition software to a PDA. Ericsson cancelled a Series 5MX derived smartphone project in 2001.

Psion had sold its sole manufacturing plant in 1999 and started to withdraw from its PDA markets in late 2001, shedding 250 of 1,200 staff and writing-off £40 million. The PDA, which was once a niche market, had become a global horizontal marketplace where it was difficult for Psion to compete. The final blow for Psion's Organiser and PDA business came in January 2001 when Motorola pulled out of a joint project with Psion, Samsung, and Parthus, to create "Odin", an ARM-based PDA-phone.

In 2000, Psion acquired Teklogix of Canada for £240 million, and merged its business-to-business division, Psion Enterprise, with the newly acquired company. Teklogix was rebranded Psion Teklogix, and this division formed the core of Psion Plc's business.

In 2002, Psion launched the Psion Software division. This business developed push email solutions for Symbian smartphones, Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. This business was sold to Visto of the United States in 2003.

In 2004, Psion disposed of the company's remaining Symbian shareholding to Nokia, as they no longer regarded it as a core part of their strategy.

Last years (2010–2012)
In its last years, Psion made tailored and customized modular variants of its products through its online community, Ingenuity Working. Launched in March 2010, Ingenuity Working had more than 35,000 visitors per month within its first six months.

In January 2011, the launched a new logo, simultaneously removing Teklogix from its operating company name.

Motorola Solutions announced in June 2012 that it had agreed to acquire Psion for $200 million.

Netbook trademark litigation
Psion registered the trademark Netbook in various territories, including the European Union and, which was applied for on 18 December 1996 and registered by USPTO on 21 November 2000. They used this trademark for the Psion netBook product, discontinued in November 2003, and from October 2003, the NETBOOK PRO, later also discontinued.

Intel started using the term netbook in March 2008 as a generic term to describe "small laptops that are designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet", believing they were "not offering a branded line of computers here" and "see no naming conflict".

In response to the growing use of the term, on 23 December 2008 Psion Teklogix sent cease and desist letters to various parties including enthusiast website(s) demanding they no longer use the term "netbook".

In early 2009, Intel sued Psion Teklogix (US & Canada) and Psion (UK) in the Federal Court, seeking a cancellation of the trademark and an order enjoining Psion from asserting any trademark rights in the term "netbook", a declarative judgement regarding their use of the term, attorneys' fees, costs and disbursements and "such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper". The suit was settled out of court, and on June 2, 2009, Psion announced that the company was withdrawing all of its trademark registrations for the term "Netbook" and that Psion agreed to "waive all its rights against third parties in respect of past, current or future use" of the term.

Similar marks were rejected by the USPTO citing a "likelihood of confusion" under section 2(d), including 'G NETBOOK' ( rejected 31 October 2008), Micro-Star International's (MSI) 'WIND NETBOOK' and Coby Electronics' 'COBY NETBOOK' ( rejected 13 January 2009)

Integration with Linux
Psion had a lengthy, but distant, interest in Linux as an operating system on its electronic devices. In 1998, it supported the Linux7K project that had been initiated by Ed Bailey at Red Hat, which was to port Linux to its Series 5 personal computer. The project was named after the Cirrus Logic PS-7110 chip of the Series 5. Although this project was one of the earliest attempts to port Linux to a handheld computer, it did not come to fruition for Psion. The project soon transitioned to an informal open-source software project at Calcaria.net that kept the name Linux7K. After the project transitioned again to sourceforge.net, the project's name was changed to a more general name PsiLinux, and later to OpenPsion. The project has developed Linux kernels and file systems for the Revo, Series 5 and 5MX, and Series 7 and netBook.

In 2003–4, Psion Teklogix and its founder David Potter expressed interest in Linux as the operating system for its devices as it divested from Symbian. However, the only result of that interest was Linux as the operating system on a limited number of custom NetBook Pros designed for a hospital setting.

The Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset project has produced a small subset of Linux that runs on Psion Series 3 PDAs.

PDAs

 * Psion Organiser and Psion Organiser II
 * Psion HC
 * Psion Series 3, 3a, 3c & 3mx
 * Psion Siena
 * Psion Series 5, 5mx & 5mx Pro
 * Psion Revo
 * Psion netBook
 * Psion Netpad
 * Psion Series 7
 * Psion Teklogix Netbook Pro (Windows CE)
 * Psion Workabout
 * Psion iKon

All these PDAs except the Psion netpad have a small keyboard, which excepting the Organiser, HC and Workabout was of the standard QWERTY layout, or a regional variation thereof.

Laptops

 * Psion MC 200
 * Psion MC 400
 * Psion MC 400 WORD
 * Psion MC 600 (DOS)

title: Psion (company)


text:
1490s BC

The 1490s BC was a decade lasting from January 1, 1499 BC to December 31, 1490 BC.

Events and trends

 * Egypt conquers Nubia and the Levant (1504 BC–1492 BC).
 * 1500 BC: Coalescence of a number of cultural traits including undecorated pottery, megalithic burials, and millet-bean-rice agriculture indicate the beginning of the Mumun Pottery Period in the Korean peninsula.
 * 1497 BC—Cranaus, legendary King of Athens, is deposed after a reign of 10 years by his son-in-law Amphictyon of Thessaly, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha.
 * 1493 BC—Thutmose I (Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt) died.
 * c. 1492 BC—Thutmose I dies (other date is 1493 BC).
 * 1492 BC—April 3—Lunar Saros 37 begins.
 * 1491 BC—According to James Ussher's chronology, this is when Moses led the Hebrews from Egypt. This was called the Exodus.

Significant people

 * Thutmose II of Egypt, Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt (c. 1493 BC – c. 1479 BC).

title: 1490s BC