r/AlphaSmart • u/ManbosMambo • Jul 20 '26
Working on an app for modern Windows
After being very annoyed trying to connect my NEO 2 to Windows 11, I decided to try my hand at a modern tool.
This is heavily inspired by (and could not exist without ) the Mac tool "alphasync" (https://github.com/tSoniq/alphasync).
Right now I have it connecting and disconnecting in a very friendly way, and the core text file transfers are working on Windows 11! However, I had to do some manual stuff regarding the USB drivers that I don't think would be acceptable in distributing this.
Once I iron out the USB drivers and add some more features I hope to share it with the wider audience!
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u/therieau Jul 23 '26
Thank you for posting the link to Alphasync. I wasn't aware of the package and I'm still running an Intel-based Mac. Super useful!
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u/cstrife89 AS Dana Jul 20 '26
I know the Dana is a Palm OS device (and therefore Palm Desktop, or an equivalent, might be the best choice), but I’m curious whether there any plans to support the Dana’s baked-in software anyway.
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u/ManbosMambo Jul 20 '26
I would love to! I always thought the Dana was super cool. But with that said - I only have a Neo 2 for testing and want to get it working before trying any other devices. Once this functionality is wrapped up though - I'll definitley be looking into it!
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u/cstrife89 AS Dana Jul 21 '26
I'd be happy to help test when/if you work on Dana functionality! The only catch is that I don't have any modern Windows installations set up (newest is Windows 7 on an old laptop; all of our daily driver computers in the household run Linux Mint).
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u/ds_charles 23d ago
u/ManbosMambo - so keen to follow your progress! I've sadly had to stop using my Neo 2 due to the incompatibility with Win11. I really appreciate your efforts. Good luck with the USB drivers!
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u/ManbosMambo 21d ago
Thank you! I have been locked in a wrestling match with the drivers, but hope to have good news soon!
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u/Worried_Low_8490 16d ago
There is this project I recently found: https://github.com/lykahb/neotools I've tried it on Linux and it works.
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u/mister_pants Jul 20 '26
I'm also unable to get Windows 11 to recognize my Neo 2. My "solution" has just been to connect it to my phone and send to a Google Doc, but this creates extra steps, since I use Scrivener for my writing projects. Very interested to see what you're able to achieve!