Remember PALM

[ls354]

Am I the only one who remembers the days when PALM was the bomb, back then they were the innovators for the industry. 512 KB of memory was all it took to get me going, the ability to take notes, have a calendar and send email was revolutionary back then.

But along the way they lost the magic, the OS became a huge disappointment frequent resets became normal for Garnet. The last PDA I bought was the Tungsten C, expensive and buggy it was time to ditch PALM.

I laugh at the fact that Windows in the form of Compaq was the other option. Looking back at PALM I can only say they have become the dinosaur of the industry.

Does anybody else have memories of PALM?

[Asterik]

Of course, but now that they've split the company *which was obviously a mistake*, they've seemingly taken it straight on the face in their product line and OS. Its a shame, Palm was once the king.

[pmarch]

I am still using a Tungsten T5
It still works great.
Why would I need a phone integrated in my PDA?

I just use this for my task lists, word (.doc) files to read, excel, pdf's...

That's all I really need.
Why is everybody always freaked out about the latest. If it works, why change?

I'm just disappointed though that it will not synchronize properly on Linux..

Can't wait to totally phase out XP! Damn!!!!


Pete

[elija]

I had a psion 3, in fact I might still have it somewhere...

[daark.child]

Funny that you mention PALM. A few days ago, I found an old Sony CLIE I bought in 2001/2 with PALM OS 4 and 4MB RAM. I was thinking of what I could do with it, and decided that I might get a memory stick and install Linux. As for PALM itself, apparently the Treo and Centro phones they are producing, are making them a nice little profit, so they are not doing too bad.

[questio verum]

I remember Palm quite well. I had one of the original USRobotics PalmPilot 5000 models, still functional, until last year's fire claimed it. It used graffitti handwriting recognition, 512kB ram, a monochrome lcd screen, and for it's time was the whip. My unit had a lifetime repair/replacement warranty. I don't think they do that anymore. It was supported by a burgeoning development community until the company's future and direction started becoming unclear. I considered a Treo recently, but it is too poorly supported to be a viable option anymore.

I'm waiting now for someone to release a linux-powered 3G smartphone or PDA in the US. Probably won't happen though, so I'll just wait until something with the Eeepc 900's form factor, but with more storage & ram arrives.

qv

[questio verum]

I had a psion 3, in fact I might still have it somewhere...

Seems you guys on the other side of the pond got the cool stuff when it came to the earlier pda's. I mean, the Psion and the Zaurus. How 'bout the Zaurus running linux... now how cool is that?! We did have the Newton over here, but it was too tied in to the whole apple corp thing. I remember seeing ads for the psion shoulder holster. Basically like a sidearm shoulder holster, but for your pda. Quaint now, but major geeky coolness back then.

qv

[elija]

Yeah, the psions were great. The Palms and similiar were smaller and more what could could be called pocket sized. The Psions were huge in comparison often leading to the question; is that a Psion in your pocket or are you deliberately walking in circles?

When I upgraded to the Series 5 it had this really cool keybpard that slid out as you opened the lid. It was a tad flimsy, but lot better for typing on.

[pmarch]

Since I'm still using my Tungsten T5 actively, I found a way yesterday to synchronize it with Evolution mail!
Worked fine for one day.
This morning, all my tasks were gone in the GUI.
When I tried to sync again, nothing happened. However, everything else synched just fine.

i opened a ticket: Bug 546012 - Gnome-pilot synchronisation (Evolution)

It,s definitely a much nicer GUI than PalmOne's...