Modems and external dialers.

[Liam Proven]

On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 at 19:55, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> I used my Palm(s) completely stand-alone.
> I did not "synchronize" them with PC, other than a token backup to confirm
> process.  And I never used it as a peripheral to the PC.
> I did transfer a few files back and forth between Palm and PC; for
> example, for a conference, I copied a file with the conference schedule
> to the Palm.
>
> I used the Fossil (Palm-OS) VERY briefly, in the same way.  The watchband
> on it is still new and stiff.

I am boggling. Well, perhaps this is an intercontinental difference,
or perhaps I just had it wrong. For most of the users I know, it was a
pocketable version of their Outlook calendar and address book.

> I used Atari Portfolio and Poqet a bit.  AND, when I needed to research
> and learn TSRs, I did so on them!  Poqet was MS-DOS 5.00.  Portfolio was
> imitation-DOS, but close enough that they had implemented the undocumented
> calls that TSRs used.  I wrote the [text-mode] screen capture TSR for
> XenoFont on them.  (For a while, Sybex used the screen capture and
> screen printing routines of XenoFont for all of their text-mode books.
> Then, I wrote the XenoSoft Sales Tax Genie on the Poqet.
>
> Yes, I tested everything on CGA, MDA, Hercules, EGA, VGA, 286, 386, 486,
> Pentium.  But why bother using those on 80x86 projects that were not
> performance intensive?  Nothing becomes USELESS just because there now
> exists something bigger and faster.

Well, no, of course not. That's sort of why we're all here.

I still use DOS occasionally -- usually DR-DOS or PC DOS, for me. For
some things, such as word processing, it's still fine.

But whereas I know people who use Mutt/Neomutt/Alpine, I want a GUI
for my email these days, for instance.

> I used the OQOs (XP) extensively for email and web browsing.  (Before
> Android smartphones)

I used my Nokia Communicator for that. :-) Small enough to use with 1
hand, when closed it was a decent "candybar" phone, but open, I could
read a letterbox-sized slice of an A4 PDF page comfortable.

> Until presbyopia did me in, I had no problem with tiny screens, if they
> had enough resolution.  I could read microfilm without a viewer, and could
> easily see the grain in photos.  When the ophthalmalogist asked me to read
> the smallest line on the eye chart, he had to walk over to it before he
> would believe me that it said, "Copyright Bausch and Lomb".  Now, I can't
> even read printed text without at least +2.5

:-(

I live in some fear of this, and it's why I have not had laser eye
surgery. (Adding the erroneous hyphen makes it sound much more
exciting: laser-eye surgery.)

I still have good close-up vision, at 51, but I have to hold stuff
within a few inches of my nose to do it. If/when that goes, either
LASIK or a cataract op will be high on the list

> I would hope that the keyboard for Palm would at least use Grafiti font
> for its keycaps    :-)

:-o

I have 2 of them and I have to disappoint you. :-D

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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