Modems and external dialers.

[Ethan Dicks]

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