cross-posted from: https://mamot.fr/users/thibaultamartin/statuses/113879452911907737
Palms were offline devices that only synced with your computer when put on a docking station.
You could read and reply to emails offline, book or cancel meetings, and sync with your computer later. The latest versions allowed you to snap pictures and listen to your music.
No servers running constantly. No data spilled everywhere. Days worth of battery on a single charge.
The future stole our cables, and it took our attention span and our privacy with it.
#privacy #offline #data
They’re shockingly useful today as a tool to manage ADHD, since they have a buncha organizational software baked into the OS, with plenty of other productivity apps still available for download off of PalmDB, without the connectivity nor distractions of a modern smartphone. I’m using a Sony PEG-UX50, which uses PalmOS 5, has a built in keyboard, and expandable memory (in the form of Sony Memory Sticks, cause Sony was addicted to format wars at the time.)
Oh, I remember those sexy boyos!
Laptops were offline devices that only synced with any computer when put on a phone cable.
The boss already had wifi. But it was a large external antenna and the speeds were terrible.
Yep, I had a B wireless setup in 1999. Poor performance, but I wasn’t tethered!
Not to spoil the nostalgia vibes but wanted to share the Palma2, popular enough that they made a second version. Briefly: its an e-ink reader, in the form factor of a 6 inch smartphone. It runs Android for compatibility, no cell data only WiFi and even has a basic camera for document scanning. It’s definately not privacy protecting but it is resistant to endless online slop traps, which I think is part of what makes a modern smartphone problematic. I’m not recommending it but just noticed the similarities to some of the classic PDAs, especially the high contrast interface and reduced animations.
Octacore cpu? That’s more than some of the new HP laptops out there, which have gone backwards to dualcore lol
Edit: cpu, not vpu
I had the Palm VII, which had a mobile data connection and an antenna you would flip up. I felt like a god. When i “upgraded” to the Compaq ipaq i felt that the world was my oyster!
Now i hate my phone.
I had the Palm VII, which had a mobile data connection and an antenna you would flip up. I felt like a god.
The Palm VII was the first device that was even theoretically obtainable by me (I didn’t buy one because shit was expensive yo) that could provide mobile internet access in a form factor I considered usable.
I lusted over it like I’d lusted over no device before.
It feels like i didn’t have the VII for a solid year before the service got turned off. The iPAQ had a docking sleeve for a cf wireless card. That was when i felt like a mad pimp. 🤓
My t5 tungsten didnt have wifi, but there was bt and ir. and you could buy a wifi card.
they (or at least the later palm pilot) had a surprisingly robust system for recognizing handwriting! individual characters had to be single strokes, and you needed to write each one a buncha times to calibrate initially so it has something to compare against, but i remember it being notably faster to type with than other contemporaneous tiny keyboards.
You had to write your letters in Graffiti, but yeah, it worked great.
I have a IIIXe (very similar to the one in OP) somewhere. Really limited in what it could do, but very cool for the time. I also have a later model Zire somewhere that had enough horsepower (with a mild overclock) to play Quake.
My palm treo 650 was the most badass phone ever
Yep. While Android can do far more, the Treo keyboard kicked ass.
Sick ringtones too
http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/unzipped/Palm/Treo-650/
Ooh, midi tones!
Though the Treo could use MP3 for tones too. It could also play video files, I remember watching Mars Attacks on a flight. Ate the hell out of battery, but I always carried multiples.
It was truly the first viable smart phone. With a wifi SD card, I could browse the web (albeit with terrible speed and a pitiful browser, but better than other mobile devices at the time) and sync to my laptop over wifi.
I had an sd card with a horribly compressed version of the first season of aqua teen hunger force on mine. People were so jealous, probably (they weren’t)
Got to put a carefully cut strip of scotch magic translucent tape over the stylus square for both protection and friction enhancing
Always practice safe graffiti
The III had an IR sync as well, but you had to initiate it and it was line of sight with the IR port on your computer.
I had it working with my Rev. B iMac.
Man, I miss my Palm III. Left it in a jacket pocket too close to a wall heater. :(
If you pointed two of them at each other, you could play multiplayer games over IR. It was pretty janky.
I wish I still had the dock for mine, I still have my Palm pilot.
I still have the dock, but it’s got a serial port, and I can’t manage to connect it even with a serial to USB adapter. Doubt the software would run anyway, that was under Windows 3.11 I think? 95 at best.
Would be neat if there was Linux software for it based on reverse engineered protocol.
I just want to be able to charge mine. I love to occasionally reminisce on old devices.
On a single charge? The Palm Pilot used 2xAAA batteries. You could use rechargeables, I suppose, but they would have been NiCads, not Lithiums, in the 90’s. More likely you were using disposables.
My Zire71 had a LiIon battery that did require charging.
Still a charge, just no re for tomorrow.
Also I’m pretty sure those things lasted a lot longer than a day.
Loved my Palm III. Simpler days.
I used to take notes on paper in graffiti cause it was kind of a pseudo shorthand.
My handwriting went from perfect block lettering (engineer/draftsman) to unintelligible scrawl when I learnt graffiti.
I still try to use graffiti when I try to “type” on my AppleWatch.
There was a Graffiti keyboard for android but I don’t think it’s maintained anymore.
Smartphones are nothing more than gentrified PDAs…
Literally the first phones labeled “smartphones” were things like the Handspring Treo that ran PalmOS.
