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I really wonder, though, if my Palm m100 is someplace I want to run Linux. PalmOS works fine, and does the intended job. If it ain't broke....

You can stop wondering. The m100 (and 105) don't have a flash rom, so you can't upgrade the OS on it. Palm.com's comparison chart of all their models shows which of their current models have a flash rom.

"Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done".

For a long time, Psion had the handheld market sewn-up. Sure, it had competitors like Casio and Atari (remember the Portfolio anyone?) but no one who really had a well-rounded, well-supported product with either a software- or user-base to match.

But the one area the Psion was weak in was connectivity. Out of the box, you could not connect a Psion to a PC or a Mac, which meant all those names, numbers and address had to be entered manually. Eventually, the company released connectivity kits that allowed users to exchange data between their devices and their PCs. But at £50/$80 or so, these weren't exactly great value for money.

Then US Robotics came along with the Pilot, which, after various model revisions and name changes, became the Palm. Now, fuctionwise, this new handheld didn't do anything that any other handheld could do - to-do list, calendar, calculator, contacts, notes. But what it did do was connect to and exchange data with PCs very easily. At the touch of a button no less, out of the box

Meanwhile, Psion happily trundled on ignoring the fact that the market had changed and that users now expected PC connectivity at no extra cost. Rather than bundling the necessary cable and software (cost to them perhaps £10/$15), they carried on with the same business model.

Now when you have a monopoly (or near monopoly) you can ignore the market like this and just do what you want. When you don't, you have to watch the rest of the herd and, sometimes, follow them.

Psion didn't, sales dropped, the Symbian alliance lifeboat sank, and the rest is history.

I've just purchased a Handspring Visor Platinum a couple months ago (and *then* they drop the price down to $250) and it works great. It runs PalmOS 3.5 out of the box, which is what you will find most apps developed for. There is a lot of software and development options, including open source stuff. Is it really that critical that you have Linux on there? I dont know the price tag of the iPaq, but frankly I would seriously consider some of the PalmOS hardware as well. Its really quite nice. I've just started to develop on it, and its not any harder than elsewhere, except code bloat can become a problem if you dont watch it.

I dont have hands on experience with the new Palm M500 and 505, but my boss at work has a 505 (which is color with PalmOS 4.0 native i believe) and loves it to death. The Platinum and M505 both have 33mHz Dragonball processors and 8 megs of RAM, plus expansion room. Especially for the Visors, with the Springboard expansions. Reference to Handspring for their information and savings offers. I really like them so far.

Just my 0.2 cents.

Did you see the lil' Flash demo? (If not, it's understandable, since Flash is evil & all, according to /.) The point isn't to stick it into your desktop computer, it's for a PDA or such. You'll save space carrying it. I figure, though, get one of those foldable keyboards Palm sells.

Only the high-end models bear those ungodly prices. In response to competition, Palm has low-end models as well. Is US $129 too much for you?

By contrast, I have yet to see a sub-$200 WinCE PDA that's worth owning. Palm can corner the low-end market like teen-agers and college students with such low-priced models. The glut of inventory means that prices will probably be driven lower still soon.

i have a palm vx and the foldable keyboard that goes with it. for $400, i can take notes whereever i'm at. if it's inconvenient to put the keyboard down, i can simply write into the palm. my accuracy at this is nearly 100%, and i get, i'd say, about 25-30 words/minute. i type 100 wpm, but all things considered, 30 on the subway making a note of something to do later in the evening is pretty good.

my dad recently got an hp jornada 720 (link) and it has a "3/4" size keyboard. that's in quotes 'cause i haven't measured it or anything. but i can type pretty quickly on this - about 70 words per minute - without much trouble. it takes a little bit of getting used to, but it's definitely possible.

my point is, i'm sure we'll keep coming up with some way to do it. whether it's a foldable keyboard for the palm, handwriting recognition, voice recognition, etc, we'll always be able to input into the tiny devices that organize our lives.

i have a palm vx and the foldable keyboard that goes with it. for $400, i can take notes whereever i'm at. if it's inconvenient to put the keyboard down, i can simply write into the palm. my accuracy at this is nearly 100%, and i get, i'd say, about 25-30 words/minute. i type 100 wpm, but all things considered, 30 on the subway making a note of something to do later in the evening is pretty good.

my dad recently got an hp jornada 720 (link) and it has a "3/4" size keyboard. that's in quotes 'cause i haven't measured it or anything. but i can type pretty quickly on this - about 70 words per minute - without much trouble. it takes a little bit of getting used to, but it's definitely possible.

my point is, i'm sure we'll keep coming up with some way to do it. whether it's a foldable keyboard for the palm, handwriting recognition, voice recognition, etc, we'll always be able to input into the tiny devices that organize our lives.

The Mobile Internet Kit includes web clipping for the rest of us. It requires (and includes) OS 3.5 so it's no good for IIIe users, but it works with all the other III, V and m series Palms. Palm sells it for $39.95 + S I got it for £18 (about $26) at an airport shop.

Buy a Palm or Visor for palm computing.

Buy a Neo 25 for portable mp3 listening.

It's just that simple. I can't understand why anybody would even waste their time with a 64mb solid state player. I'll take a 20 gig player I can stick in my pocket any day.

I've used a hard case (also available at Best Buy) as long as I've owned my Vx (since Jan 2000), and it's never turned on in my pocket.

My only gripe about the hard case is I have to take my Vx out of the case to use my nifty-neat new portable keyboard. I'm seriously considering cutting the bottom half off the back panel. I've also suggested to Palm that they market one "pre cut". We'll see.

If you want MP3 support I guess you need to go to Handspring. Which is fine by me.

The Palm OS 4.0 page says that your Palm can now lock automatically when you turn it off. It just amazes me that it took them this long to implement just one of the many great features of TealLock. I've been using TealLock for the last two and a half years and it has had that feature the whole time. Additionally, it can simply hide your "hidden" files automatically when you turn off your Palm - do you really need to lock your Palm each time you turn it off?

Also, TealLock lets you simply use a shortcut to hide and show records while in any application (and the same applies to locking/unlocking), so you don't have to go into Palm Prefs, goto Security, choose "Show Records," and then return to the app you were in.

It seems to me that Palm still has a ways to go before they implement this. I had been hoping that they would put this in OS 3.5, but instead they put a little "visible hidden field" feature in. With TealLock activated, a friend of mine tried this feature on his Palm IIIx, and it screwed things up to the point that he had to wipe the Palm and HotSync the data back in. Palm should license the TealLock software, as it is clearly superior to any security software they produce.

I have to say, the heating up of the PDA wars is definitely getting interesting (Palm vs. Handspring vs. iPAQ), but I have to say the most intriguing part of this whole battle, to me, is the emergence (and advances) of wireless Interet access.

I currently have a Handspring Visor w/ OmniSky and am, for the most part, loving it. I think getting email and news while beyond the reach of my notebook/desktop is extremely cool.

BUT -- I saw the top-o-the-line iPAQ the other day w/ the wireless modem add-on, and, frankly, I'm impressed. First off, it's color & sleek (m505/Visor Prism matches it there), it's got a PCMCIA (or whatever they call it these days) expansion module, which means the wireless modem can also work on my laptop, and thirdly (and this is the most impressive part to me), it's got a FULL web browser built-in.

I've always been as anti-WinCE/Pocket-PC as one can get, but the fact that I browse full color, full-graphics, and full-text web pages (well, for the most part) on a palm-sized device is totally cool. I know this technology will improve, but PocketPC's definitley got the lead right now.

My question is how are these new Palms going to handle the whole net access question? I have high hopes -- there seems to be mention of the "Wireless Access Software", but that doesn't seem to be more than the 'ol IR-to-cellphone gig.

I'm waiting to see what kind of wireless modems are available for these devices, and what kind of web browsers will go along with them. If the modems are like the current Minstrels (i.e. tiny expansion slot but a modem that >doubles the overall size of the unit -- LAME), I'm going to have to keep waiting....:(

nlh

I don't have any examples to hand, but I have heard of companies using fleets(?) of PalmOS devices to collect transactions that are later processed on a central system. See Palm's web site, especially their Enterprise Solutions.

I don't have any examples to hand, but I have heard of companies using fleets(?) of PalmOS devices to collect transactions that are later processed on a central system. See Palm's web site, especially their Enterprise Solutions.

The Blackberry is awesome! I had mine for a year and a half (until I gave in to my friends and got a Palm VII). Check out either one -- I still prefer the blackberry, but since most everyone else I work and interact with either has a Palm or Handspring, I can't go back. gl -- John

if you're running a networking OS you can check out
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~echobase/index.h tml
and it will tell you how to network your palm to your computer through the cradle. Then check out
http://www.palm.com/support/downloads/netsync.html
and it will tell you how to hotsync over a network. At this point all you have to do is go to the hotsync manager on your desktop and turn off local sync and turn on network sync. Then take your palm, go to the hotsync menu; select the modem sync prefs; set to network. You then half to fiddle with a few other options the palm explains quite well on their site. Only downside to this setup is when you hotsync you can't push the button on the cradle. Instead you have to open the hotsync program on the palm, select modem, and push the big hotsync button. Don't know if this will work for linux as I haven't tried. But if it works on w2k then with a little bit of work it will probably work that much better with linux.

Another advantage of flash rom is you can use a utility to save databases to flash, which is great if you need to reset your palm and don't have access to your synced information. I've been using Flash Pro to backup databases.

You'll have to watch out, because there are some Palms that don't have a flash rom, such as the Palm IIIe. This chart shows the palms that do and don't have flash (listed as "Upgradable").

If you ever need two-way paging needs, check out the Motorola Timeport 935. It has very similiar PIM applications like the Palm and can beam information too/from a Palm. Problem is, 3rd party application support is sparce.

Finally, see what your company will pay for. You may find out that the company either provides or has discounts setup for PDA's.

I've personally never seen the advantage of paying a lot more money for a Palm Vx, when all you get is the "sleeker" look (which isn't that grand if you have it in a leather case like I keep my Palm IIIxe in, anyway), and the LiIon battery, which I don't particularly like. I haven't spent but maybe 5-10 dollars on AAA batteries since I bought my IIIxe back in August.

Keep in mind that you'll also be paying about $200 more for your Vx, since they're listed at $399, and IIIxe's are now going for $199 thanks to a Christmas rebate. All in all, I like my Palm IIIxe, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking to buy a Palm.

On the other hand, I also like the looks of the Visors. The Springboard Modules look like great add-ons, and the Platinum runs at twice the clockspeed of normals Palms and Visors, meaning you might not get those slowdowns when playing pinball (darn it all!). You'll be paying an extra hundred dollars over the Palm IIIxe's price, but you'll still save over a Vx.

The Deluxe also looks nice, with the same Springboard capabilities, with the lower price and lower clockspeed. It's still $50 more expensive than the IIIxe thanks to Palm's rebate, but I was always amazed that the Deluxe was the same cost, when it had more features (included the m100's changeable faceplate, yay :-| ).

Unfortunately, I can't answer your questions about Linux interface.. I can only give details of my experiences in the handheld world.

Overall, I can personally recommend the Palm IIIxe, since it's been a dream to use, and it's on sale. However, if I was going and buying a new PDA right now, I, personally, would look into the Handspring market.

Menacer

I've personally never seen the advantage of paying a lot more money for a Palm Vx, when all you get is the "sleeker" look (which isn't that grand if you have it in a leather case like I keep my Palm IIIxe in, anyway), and the LiIon battery, which I don't particularly like. I haven't spent but maybe 5-10 dollars on AAA batteries since I bought my IIIxe back in August.

Keep in mind that you'll also be paying about $200 more for your Vx, since they're listed at $399, and IIIxe's are now going for $199 thanks to a Christmas rebate. All in all, I like my Palm IIIxe, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking to buy a Palm.

On the other hand, I also like the looks of the Visors. The Springboard Modules look like great add-ons, and the Platinum runs at twice the clockspeed of normals Palms and Visors, meaning you might not get those slowdowns when playing pinball (darn it all!). You'll be paying an extra hundred dollars over the Palm IIIxe's price, but you'll still save over a Vx.

The Deluxe also looks nice, with the same Springboard capabilities, with the lower price and lower clockspeed. It's still $50 more expensive than the IIIxe thanks to Palm's rebate, but I was always amazed that the Deluxe was the same cost, when it had more features (included the m100's changeable faceplate, yay :-| ).

Unfortunately, I can't answer your questions about Linux interface.. I can only give details of my experiences in the handheld world.

Overall, I can personally recommend the Palm IIIxe, since it's been a dream to use, and it's on sale. However, if I was going and buying a new PDA right now, I, personally, would look into the Handspring market.

Menacer

I've personally never seen the advantage of paying a lot more money for a Palm Vx, when all you get is the "sleeker" look (which isn't that grand if you have it in a leather case like I keep my Palm IIIxe in, anyway), and the LiIon battery, which I don't particularly like. I haven't spent but maybe 5-10 dollars on AAA batteries since I bought my IIIxe back in August.

Keep in mind that you'll also be paying about $200 more for your Vx, since they're listed at $399, and IIIxe's are now going for $199 thanks to a Christmas rebate. All in all, I like my Palm IIIxe, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking to buy a Palm.

On the other hand, I also like the looks of the Visors. The Springboard Modules look like great add-ons, and the Platinum runs at twice the clockspeed of normals Palms and Visors, meaning you might not get those slowdowns when playing pinball (darn it all!). You'll be paying an extra hundred dollars over the Palm IIIxe's price, but you'll still save over a Vx.

The Deluxe also looks nice, with the same Springboard capabilities, with the lower price and lower clockspeed. It's still $50 more expensive than the IIIxe thanks to Palm's rebate, but I was always amazed that the Deluxe was the same cost, when it had more features (included the m100's changeable faceplate, yay :-| ).

Unfortunately, I can't answer your questions about Linux interface.. I can only give details of my experiences in the handheld world.

Overall, I can personally recommend the Palm IIIxe, since it's been a dream to use, and it's on sale. However, if I was going and buying a new PDA right now, I, personally, would look into the Handspring market.

Menacer

This is a possible solution (hey, cool, the HHKB now comes in black...), but if I'm going to carry around the keyboard (which is my preferred input method anyway) and cradle, I may as well just bring the laptop.

Then maybe you should look at the foldable keyboard instead. It's about the same size as a Palm III/VII, and it's actually a very usable keyboard. It feels very similar to the ones on laptops. You need a hard surface to place it on to keep it from folding in the middle (I guess a briefcase would do) but other than that it's great.

Why bother?

As far as I'm aware digital mobile phone communications are encrypted with something like RSA-64 anyway. It's possible to intercept analogue communications, but in the UK these are not really used anymore (at least in cellular comms.)

And with the way dist.net is going, I dont think the RC5-64's going to be broken in the time a normal phone call lasts. Sure, your governing body of choice may have access to the exchanges (court-order wiretaps etc) but that's the law when it comes to most personal communications.

Although I think the Nokia unit in the spotlight here is just eyecandy, or at least proof-of-concept. Like someone mentioned before, I'd much rather take out a Palm Vx and a Nokia 8850 than one of these anyday.

Or the Palm Vc when it comes out ... mmmmmm :)

To sum up my aborted post, Cray has been evolving from the single processor Cray-1, to the Multi-processor Cray YMP, to the massively distributed T3E. Seymour and Cray Computer Corp. (spun off of CRI in the late 80's or so) failed because they couldn't push as much performance through a smaller number of processors. Eventually the physical laws of silicon (Seymour even tried GaAs to get more performance) take over, and you must expand the number of processing units to get greater and greater performance.

The T3E is a 3D toroidal-constructed system. SGI's Origin uses the Hypercube. Sun uses whatever Cray's Business Unit did back in the day before SGI sold the Starfire, renamed the Sun UltraEnterprise 10000, to Sun (SMP I guess). The model works. That's not disputed.

The High-End market that Cray and Hitachi serves is fairly stagnant (growing slightly more than inflation) at around 1 Billion USD/year (IIRC). It doesn't grow 40% per year like standard PCs, handhelds, or the streaming video & porn market. The pie is only so big, so IBM and Sun choose the bigger market; they're exploiting the internet. ASCI projects don't make much money. They're done for the press they receive. I've heard of companies exploiting Cray's extreme I/O bandwidth for file archivers to tape robots, but that's about it for general purpose. You wouldn't buy an SV1 or a Hitachi to run Apache, that's for sure.

As Durinia pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, Ford and other auto companies still use Cray Vector machines, as well as other research labs, etc. Vector use isn't dead in the US. It's just not the centerpiece, I guess.

< $300: Palm m100 or IIIxe. I thought I was indulging myself when I bought my IIIx. It didn't take me long to realize that it was the most truly useful thing I've ever owned. Besides, I can laugh at people who struggle with the upkeep of FiloFaxes that look like George Costanza's wallet.

$300 - $1500: TiVo. If only the shows were as intelligent.... :-) If you need more motivation, there's now a $100 rebate coupon on their web site.

> $1500: Nissan Skyline GT-R. Grey-marketed in the US by MotoRex. 1999 R34 models start at $85,500, but it is most certainly not what everyone else is driving.

Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel/Facing down the future coming fast - Rush

< $300: Palm m100 or IIIxe. I thought I was indulging myself when I bought my IIIx. It didn't take me long to realize that it was the most truly useful thing I've ever owned. Besides, I can laugh at people who struggle with the upkeep of FiloFaxes that look like George Costanza's wallet.

$300 - $1500: TiVo. If only the shows were as intelligent.... :-) If you need more motivation, there's now a $100 rebate coupon on their web site.

> $1500: Nissan Skyline GT-R. Grey-marketed in the US by MotoRex. 1999 R34 models start at $85,500, but it is most certainly not what everyone else is driving.

Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel/Facing down the future coming fast - Rush

< $300: Palm m100 or IIIxe. I thought I was indulging myself when I bought my IIIx. It didn't take me long to realize that it was the most truly useful thing I've ever owned. Besides, I can laugh at people who struggle with the upkeep of FiloFaxes that look like George Costanza's wallet.

$300 - $1500: TiVo. If only the shows were as intelligent.... :-) If you need more motivation, there's now a $100 rebate coupon on their web site.

> $1500: Nissan Skyline GT-R. Grey-marketed in the US by MotoRex. 1999 R34 models start at $85,500, but it is most certainly not what everyone else is driving.

Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel/Facing down the future coming fast - Rush

Under 300$
Of course a PlayStation 2! =)

Over 300$ but still decent price
The Ultimate Geek "Tool" (heemm..), a Palm Vx (http://www.palm.com/products/pal mvx /index.html)

In the YEAH-BABY-YEAH! category:
A 2000 Porsche 911 GT3 (http://www.us.pors che .com/english/911/models/gt3/default.htm)

...in each category.

Low: Everybody needs more memory. Or you can help save a species.
Mid: Put this in your hand, or this under your desk. Either would please.
If you have to ask: One of these would be nice, particularly for Quake, but I NEED one of these. Really. It could solve a fair number of problems.

Cheaper Then a Playstation 2:

USB CD-RW drive
Palm IIIxe

Cheaper Then a Playstation 2's rumored eBay sale value:

FireWire CD-RW drive
iBook

Unlimited:

Porsche Carrera GT




Refrag

Personally, I love my IIIc ($399 retail) for showing color photos on the run, but for a beginning user, the M100 ($149 retail) would be great. Also, some of the Visor models are quite nice too, and they are upgradable with lots of gadgets. This gift works for everyone, as most people have the need to store addresses, calendars, shopping lists, etc, etc, etc. (Just make sure to get extra batteries (or an extra cradle charger)!)

-mark

Personally, I love my IIIc ($399 retail) for showing color photos on the run, but for a beginning user, the M100 ($149 retail) would be great. Also, some of the Visor models are quite nice too, and they are upgradable with lots of gadgets. This gift works for everyone, as most people have the need to store addresses, calendars, shopping lists, etc, etc, etc. (Just make sure to get extra batteries (or an extra cradle charger)!)

-mark

First of all, The IBM Netvista X-40 is awesome. Just got mine, and I have to say, this is where PC computing is going. I have so much more desk space, I can actually fit a real book on it now.

I know this is redundant, but Palm still makes out with the best gifts. I personally own an m100, and am getting a V-series this December (found that out during a secret spy mission into the gift closet).

Of course, anything from ThinkGeek will show your loved ones that you care.

First of all, The IBM Netvista X-40 is awesome. Just got mine, and I have to say, this is where PC computing is going. I have so much more desk space, I can actually fit a real book on it now.

I know this is redundant, but Palm still makes out with the best gifts. I personally own an m100, and am getting a V-series this December (found that out during a secret spy mission into the gift closet).

Of course, anything from ThinkGeek will show your loved ones that you care.

First of all, The IBM Netvista X-40 is awesome. Just got mine, and I have to say, this is where PC computing is going. I have so much more desk space, I can actually fit a real book on it now.

I know this is redundant, but Palm still makes out with the best gifts. I personally own an m100, and am getting a V-series this December (found that out during a secret spy mission into the gift closet).

Of course, anything from ThinkGeek will show your loved ones that you care.

There are really two approaches to this problem. You can put a PC in every room or use one PC and run speaker cables to the extra rooms. Let me explain.

For the first approach you would likely need ethernet wiring for the whole house and a PC in every room. This is not very practical and causes a lot of clutter. I do this with 4 PCs. I have samba or windows servers running on every machine so mp3s from any machine can be accessible from all over the place. Samba really ties things together, I recommend it if you will be mixing operating systems. I'd also recommend getting a mini-keyboard and trackball for every room. Or, if your a programmer, download IBM's ViaVoice SDK and whip up some voice control software, it's not that hard and you could hide the PC in a closet. Very nifty


Even niftier - use one main server and run speaker cables to every room from your amplifier. You will need to devise some kind of central control mechanism of course. Here's where my kinda but not so far-fetched idea for a dream setup comes in. I'm not sure what the wireless networking options are for the palm and visor, but this idea could really use such a thing. You'd basically write some software for the Palm that talked over the network to your server, which would play the mp3s. Palm apps are written in GNU C, so it would be pretty simple to whip up this little app. The wireless ethernet card is the only missing linked. Anyone know if such a product exists? There's always the Palm Ethernet Cradle. Someone would have to write a daemon that would listen in for play requests. Some commands the daemon might listen for from palms:

"ls"
"cd /home/emice/mp3/Cake - Motorcade of Generosity"
"!play |(Cake) - Ain't No Good.mp3| zone4"
"!stop zone4"
"master volume 233 zone1"
"status zone3"
etc.. You could even telnet to the servers port and issue these commands from anywhere :-).

For multi-zone use you could easily rig up a really up your parallel port with a relay controller to switch zones among the multiple sound cards. A relay is simply electronically controlled magnetic switch. A darlington transistor followed by a relay on each pin of your parallel port would allow for 13 electronic switches. Switching a relay is too much load for your parallel port, so it would switch the darlington using a small current and then the darlington would switch the relay since it requires a larger current. You can get cheap $2 IC chips with 8 darlingtons in them. And programming the parallel port for this kind of application is pretty simple too, it's just a matter of setting the right bits to put a voltage difference on a particular pin. Check the Linux Howtos, there is one on Parallel Port Programming.

This project could get pretty interesting. If I had a palm and the time, I'd already be working on this, but like many people here I've got a lot more ideas than time to work on all of them. I'd love to see something like this pursued though.

emice

So the 'cool' factor is there, but how long will it take to get the wide variety of software that the PalmOS does?

Other than the VIIx and the previously mentioned M100, Palm also introduced two special edition Vx models (in "champagne" and "millenium blue"), an ethernet cradle (overpriced at $250 if you ask me) that can be used to sync Pilots over the network, and a new, "blazingly fast" 33.6 modem. The VIIx wasn't the only major announcement, perhaps /. should have read the *whole* press release

The only thing that the VIIx adds is more memory, according to Palm's press release. So take the experiences of having a Palm VII and multiply times 4.
------
James Hromadka

wish
---

Do you even know how many thousands of embedded devices there are running on 486 chips? Do you know the power consumption of a 486 compared to a Pentium? How 'bout heat? Now tell me where size really matters - when you've got a big desk with space for a computer, or in an embedded device with 5 cubic inches to spare in the design?

This isn't about a backpack computer. It's not about a belt clip computer. I already have one of those. This is an embedded device! Get it through your skull!

</troll feeding>

Go to Palm for developer info.

cool-now I can exceed my monthly kilobyte allocation all in one day!

time to sign up for the unlimited volume plan
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?

Hoping to entice developers to begin coding applications for the impending wireless connectivity technology, Bluetooth(TM) IBM has set the ball rolling for Linux, by releasing the BlueDrekar protocol stack for Linux, and by open-sourcing a driver for the HCI UART transport layer. In a three-part blitz, IBM released an article on developerWorks, a downloadable tecknology on alphaWorks, and an open source code from Research.

Full article on developerWorks: link

Open-source article from IBM Research: link

Download BlueDrekar off alphaWorks: link

Also, check out the kick ass TDK Bluetooth devices.

Funny, the link right here at the Palm site says that they're using DRAM in the III's and V's.

Maybe they use PSRAM in the old Pilots, but not anymore.

They realized that they were not competing with the computer but with PAPER!

The document analogy may take quite a while to replace. It has, after all, been with us since the time of clay tablets...

/joeyo

It's too little to late. Next generation Mobile Phones will be more like Palms with wireless networking. Right now I'm using Nokia 8210 + Palm V and connect using the infrared interface. I can even browse slashdot, although I will probably have to set up special palm account with minimal interface. Many sites already have AvantGo-ized pages, with minimal tables and graphics.
WAP is horrible to set up, you need no less than NINE parameters to configure WAP service (URL, Connection type, Connection security, Bearer, Dial-up number, IP address, Authentication type, Data cell type, Data speed, User name and Password) (PHEW!) Although many of these are the same for most connections.
J.

O'reilly book online for free Palm Development-Howto Links to more info and I assume you have gcc for palm as well as prc.. All that can be found here: http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/tools/gcc/ Hope that helps.

Looks like HP made a mistake. I wonder what if anything the buyers of these PocketPCs will ask for, or if any will want their money back.

I do wonder what one really needs with 16 bit color on a tiny palmtop screen. Ok, I can see the advantage of color and LCD backlighting and all that stuff, but for the applications now used in these things, is it really necessary? The popularity of the Palm series is proof that you do not need colors to make an incredibly useful and easy to read product. Color screens have lots of problems like higher cost, much higher battery consumption, etc. Palm has recently introduced a color model of the Palm, but it has the same price and battery limitations, which means that it probably won't be as popular as the really nifty looking and lightweight Palm V.

I've used and tried a lot of PDAs before (all the way back to a Tandy Zoomer that came out something like 5 or 6 years ago). To me, there's a much smaller niche for PDAs that try to do everything (PocketPC) than those that are really quick, efficient and easy at simple datebook/contactmanager/notes (Palm).

Looks like HP made a mistake. I wonder what if anything the buyers of these PocketPCs will ask for, or if any will want their money back.

I do wonder what one really needs with 16 bit color on a tiny palmtop screen. Ok, I can see the advantage of color and LCD backlighting and all that stuff, but for the applications now used in these things, is it really necessary? The popularity of the Palm series is proof that you do not need colors to make an incredibly useful and easy to read product. Color screens have lots of problems like higher cost, much higher battery consumption, etc. Palm has recently introduced a color model of the Palm, but it has the same price and battery limitations, which means that it probably won't be as popular as the really nifty looking and lightweight Palm V.

I've used and tried a lot of PDAs before (all the way back to a Tandy Zoomer that came out something like 5 or 6 years ago). To me, there's a much smaller niche for PDAs that try to do everything (PocketPC) than those that are really quick, efficient and easy at simple datebook/contactmanager/notes (Palm).