On 02/11/2020 10:09 AM, Richard Owlett wrote:
I wish to enter/store data while away from home. The data will then be
transferred to my laptop via a USB cable. [Think the capability of one
of the old Palm Pilots in a smartphone(sic) form factor]
"Palm Pilot" was the not best visualization.
A better image would be the pocket protector full of 3x5 cards a fellow
engineering student used in the early 60's. He had it organized for
quick retrieval of notes on a specific topic.
Everything I wish to do accomplish has a direct analog to how he did things.
An inverse is frequently also true.
E.G. A frequent "must have" feature of a smartphone is a cell modem. The
analog would be my friend viewing someone-else's set of cards.
Many smartphone features are of no value or are detrimental to my
intended use. Prime examples include Android OS and any graphical browser.
What I could envision using would be Debian with a minimal MATE Desktop
and a single custom Tcl/Tk app. The bottom of the screen would have a
4x15 character array emulating a QWERTY keyboard for input of arbitrary
alphanumeric data. Display of "retrieved data" or "data being entered"
would be handled by the Tcl/Tk app.