Palm OS (pre-Cobalt/6.0)
As the launch of the Palm Pre nears, I felt it would be appropriate to take a look back at my love affair with the PDA.
In an era before smartphones and online scheduling services, those like me required a separate method of remaining organized. I’ve probably had hundreds of paper organizers throughout my life, filling in a day or two here and there until inevitably tossing it on a rarely used piece of furniture or letting it slowly compost with an ancient granola bar in the bottom of a secondhand messenger bag. It was always tragic, finding it months later, dozens of events remaining on scraps of paper shoved haphazardly within its pages, none of theme transferred to the lines of the calendar’s grid. I would remove the usual discount club cards, make a half-assed attempt to sort through any remaining appointments, and drop it in the trash. I’d head up to the discount store, drop a Jackson on one for the current year, and the cycle would begin again. This went on from my freshman year of high school to my sophomore year of college.
My roommate during my freshman year of college was a technophile, among other things. He went on to become a somewhat successful programmer, but at this point he was a computer science major with a part time coding job, writing software for touch screen registers for fast food chains. His high school sweetheart had received a rather odd graduation present, a Palm IIIe. Wanting nothing to do with it, she gave it to him before they headed off to separate schools. I took little interest in what I assumed was a touch screen calculator of some sort, and my roommate didn’t seem to hold it in high regards initially. He went as far as leaving it on the floor between our two bunks most of the time, until one day one of us (I think it was me) stepped on it, instantly destroying the device’s screen. I was shocked he noticed at all, yet alone skipped class to run to the nearest Best Buy to replace the thing. He ended up bringing home the semi-contoured
Palm m100 instead. It had a smaller form factor, fit more comfortably into his unwashed Dockers slacks, and ran an updated version of the OS, version 3.5. It did sacrifice some memory, but at that time Palm OS and its applications ran on such a tiny footprint, 2MB was more than adequate for daily use.
Over the rest of the year, on into summer, he allowed me to spend time with the device, playing some simple freeware games and learning its special touchscreen language, Graffiti. It broke the stereotypes of the previous digital assistants I knew of, namely the Apple MessagePad and the HP line of “palmtop” computers. I genuinely believed it would help me in my quest for organization, as well as offer some minor diversions. I mentioned my admiration for the device to the girl I was dating at the time, and she matter-of-factly pointed out that I was not a physician and was hence not likely worthy of this luxury. I spent the rest of the summer defeated, longing after the Palm m100.
The day she left town and state for college, I excitedly called my former roommate, and he left work to drive me to Best Buy on a whim. A hundred dollars later, I had my first PDA. Another friend bought one shortly after that, and we excitedly traded addresses and applications when we were together. The innovation and success of Palm OS seemed like it had nowhere to go but up. There was even a laser tag simulator that registered “shots” fired from other Palm devices at the IR port. It began a sort of arms race, with me eventually buying a digital camera add on, then a Palm m105 to accommodate the extra memory requirements of image storage. From there, I picked up the color m130, the wireless i705 (I bought that one refurbished, alright?) and finally the Tungsten T2 (to reward myself for getting a new job). They were my lifeline until I picked up my first smartphone, the T-Mobile SDA.
I don’t carry a Palm regularly anymore, but still use them around the house. I have a used Palm V I got on eBay that functions as a universal remote. The Tungsten is a rudimentary GPS that I have in my car for long trips. I use Sony CLIÉ as a checkbook and an e-reader, since it has a big screen and a long battery life. I won’t be buying a Pre, but it cheers me up to see a Palm device get hyped again, even if it runs the Linux-based webOS.
If you missed the whole Palm thing, amazingly it’s not too late. You can pick up a Palm III, m100 or Handspring Visor Solo or Deluxe for about $30, shipped on eBay. I prefer this style since they run on replaceable AAA batteries, so you eliminate the risk of a dead lithium-ion battery. It offers a more “pure” Palm OS experience in black and white, and my favorite apps are still available on the web.
One Response to “Palm OS (pre-Cobalt/6.0)”
I have fond memories of the Gaydar application on that PDA.
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