On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 6:44 AM Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk@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
