Modems and external dialers.

[Liam Proven]

On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 at 18:47, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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).

Wow. I have never heard anyone using one so stand-alone. Fascinating. Thanks!

> What I used mine for was [...]
>
> The Palm was definitely more battery hungry.

NEC V30 at 7.68 MHz, apparently. I guess it was a more frugal chip,
and certainly a very frugal OS.

Psion *nearly* did a deal with Palm to licence EPOC32 as the basis for
the newer ARM-based Palms. I wish that had happened -- it might have
been a much better deal than what did happen for both companies.

> 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 have one somewhere, but I think it won't charge any more. I should
look into cheap repairs.

> 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 can see that, certainly.

> 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.

Ditto for me.

> Co-workers did experiment with the Palm Treo phone, but that was far
> too expensive for me to consider.

I reviewed an "HP OmniGo 700LKX" with docked Nokia.

 http://www.tankraider.com/DOSPALMTOP/hp700lx.html

That was an amazing device, albeit huge, but you could see the
potential. I loved doing wireless IRC and email on the sofa.

> 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).

Aha. I had a Motorola tri-band TimePort 7089:

http://www.mobilecollectors.net/phone/997/Motorola-Timeport%20L7089

This didn't do predictive text, so I linked it to the Psion via IRDA
and texted from a Psion app.

Then I got a Nokia 6310i:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6310i

This did T9 wonderfully quickly, but linked via IRDA to my Psion 5 and
later 5MX. I could even make a PPP connection and do email and the
web, slowly but just occasionally amazingly useful. I could also sync,
sort and internationalise my phonebook, backup my SMSes and so on. For
the time, the integration was good.

The Timeport is probably around the time I found myself in a London
pub with a visiting American friend. My friends and I were using SMS
messages to organise when and where to meet. The American commented
that sadly American phones didn't do that and didn't support such
features.

I told them that they did. No, nossir, no way, nope.

So I asked for their number and texted them.

The phone made a noise they'd never heard before and a tiny envelope
appeared above the clock.

They were so shocked and taken aback they nearly suffered an
embarrasing self-control favour. I had to show them how to open the
message. They were utterly aghast.

Probably cost us about $1 each to send and to receive -- years later I
discovered that what drove things like iMessage and WhatsApp is that
American cellphone users paid to _receive_ text messages. This blew
the minds of every European who learned it. We paid a tiny amount to
send them, under 5¢, and only when the few thousand you got for free
every month were exhausted -- but no European network ever charged to
_receive_ SMS. Amazing stuff.

> 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.

I guess the killer thing for me was the keyboard. I did learn Graffiti
-- on a Newton, at first -- but I found it slow and clunky. Psions
were like tiny laptops that went into a jacket pocket. 25-30 hours of
continuous use on 2 AA alkalines, a daylight-readable screen, a
keyboard you could hi-speed thumb-type on (series 3) or touch-type on
(series 5). Usable held in both hands, or if placed on a desk, the
superb hinge designs meant that the screen and keyboard were at a
usable angle, and touchscreen models didn't tip over. 2 storage slots,
wired and wireless comms, sound recording and playback. Nothing ever
came close.

An HP LX was like using a DOS PC compared to a colour Mac.

Annoying music but a demo of a late-model Series 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlv1naXDYHs

Demo of the radically different, 32-bit, RISC-based, Psion 5:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nEBnDB79XA

Dropped the dual proprietary storage slots, replaced with 1 standard CF slot.

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