Modems and external dialers.

[Fred Cisin]

On Thu, 6 Jun 2019, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> Wow. I have never heard anyone using one [Palm] so stand-alone. 
> Fascinating. Thanks!

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 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.


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


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

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com