6 Jun
2019
6 Jun
'19
9:47 a.m.
On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 6:44 AM Liam Proven via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
...I was never a big fan
of PalmOS, TBH. Too limited for me as a former Psion user, and the
Palm devices were always very tied to a PC -- they were meant to be a
way to take your Outlook (or whatever) address book and diary with you
in your pocket.
Interesting view of Palm usage that I hadn't considered.
I didn't use Outlook or a desktop PC PIM at all.
Nor did I. When I carried a Palm Pilot every day, I was using UNIX
'mail' for work e-mail and did all local edits of my calendar on the
Palm. I did backup my Palm Pilot, to my Linux Laptop (I still have
backups files from 1999 in an archive folder).
What I used mine for was a clock, a local calendar, and once I got a
keyboard, a portable note-taker in meetings, plus games and other
trivial apps. I also got a snap-on GPS and used it when making 1-2
hour flights in a small plane (battery life was an issue on longer
flights since it wasn't designed for continuous use, even with the
backlight off). And a few times, I used a vt100 app and the standard
serial sync cable to log into and update a Cisco switch. Thinking
back, once I had that Palm V which could stay powered on in the
cradle, I used an HD44780 LCD emulator to do desktop testing of
LCDproc, an Open Source project I still work with. Most of this is
odd usage compared to the target market.
[Psion] ... fit in my pocket and ran for a month on 2
AA cells.
The Palm was definitely more battery hungry. I ended up spending a
lot of money on an early NiMh battery pack that had a replacement
battery cover that allowed for through-the-cover recharging.
Eventually, I got a used Palm V to recharge in the cradle. I also got
an app to migrate some apps to internal Flash so I wouldn't have to
reload them when my battery did go flat.
I _did_ like carrying around a 68000-based portable machine in a day
when laptops were thick and heavy and had abysmal battery life. I
didn't have a mobile phone for the first several years I had a Palm.
Later, when I got a phone, it made phone calls and that was it.
Co-workers did experiment with the Palm Treo phone, but that was far
too expensive for me to consider. It wasn't very integrated but I
carried two devices for a long time (I only upgraded from that phone
from 2000 (nine years later) once it was obsoleted on
the network
because it lacked 911-location features and it was blocked from
re-provisioning by changes in regulation in the US market).
Because of my background writing code for the 68000, I entertained
writing apps for PalmOS but I never managed to do more than get the
SDK and fiddle around a bit. I never completed a project from
end-to-end.
So I liked the Palm Pilot, but I didn't have a Psion to compare it to,
and I can see where you are coming from, from a user experience
standpoint.
-ethan