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Palm M100 "Kaizo" Hack: 8 Megs On the Cheap

Posted by timothy on from the small-hands dept.

For those who must, absolutely and without fail, take apart anything electronic which crosses the threshold of their homes, Toolsmith writes, "Here's an interesting site explaining how to upgrade your Palm m100 to 8MB of memory. "Kaizo" is Japanese for "Upgrade". They show pictures of an m100 being upgraded from 2MB to 8MB. Here's the link. Has anyone tried this one yet?"

13 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Heh by vsync64 · · Score: 4
    "Must take apart anything electronic"... That's so true. I just bought a DVD player, and for some reason a disk got stuck in the tray. Now, the place I bought it is just a few blocks from my apartment, so I could easily have taken it back for service, but instead I just whipped out a screwdriver and started opening it up.

    I don't know if opening a DVD player will void the warranty, but I honestly didn't care that much. And it wasn't so much the disk or the player that I was concerned about; I was just suddenly filled with excitement that I had an excuse to see the inside of my new toy. It was at this point that I realized Wow, I bet most people wouldn't be doing this.

    Just thought I'd share... =)

    --
    TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
  2. [OT, Redundant, Unoriginal, yadda yadda yadda] by Pont · · Score: 5

    For only USD 19.99, I can tell YOU how to turn any model of Palm Pilot into a paperweight.

  3. Has anyone got a steady hand? by mariab · · Score: 5

    This looked fascinating to me until I realised that you need to rework surface mounted components!

    I don't know how many people who read /. have tried this, but I have a few years ago. It is possibly one of the most incredibly difficult things you can attempt! I could move that little resistor they have marked, but to succesfully remove an entire DRAM chip and resolder a new one would require some extraordinary skill!

    Even when I was at my most practised and my hands seemed rock steady to me I would NEVER have attempted this!

    even now i could remove the chip, but to put in place a new one would be unthinkable

    Please no-one try this unless you are completely sure you can pull it off, I have visions of hundreds of wrecked palms from people try to do this.

    If you DO want to try it still .. good luck :)
    but don't come crying if your Palm gets amnesia ;)

    --
    meow! Maria
  4. Wrong. by BJH · · Score: 5


    Kaizo doesn't mean "upgrade"; it means "alteration" or "modification".

    BTW, if you go here you can read the original Japanese (and if you can't read Japanese, you can look at the pictures of the place where they did the modification - a little bar in Akihabara). The hack is more impressive when you realize they did it while getting drunk ;)

  5. Ti-graphing calculaor by Duke+of+Org · · Score: 3

    Is it possible to do this same type of hack to a TI-83+ due to the fact they use the same type of proc (Dragonball Z80)?

    You all don't know how bad it sucks to have only 28k (iirc) to store games on. I can only get about 2-3 games on their at max. Some games even take up the whole amount (like the doom port which has only 4 screens, front, left, right, front with baddie shooting.)

  6. C'mon, fess up. by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 3

    That was an adult DVD wasn't it, and it would be too embarressing to take that to the repair shop or your parents were due back in 30 minutes!

    Naturally, nothing like that has ever happened to me. Ever. No matter what anyone else says.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  7. PalmV 2MB to 8MB for US $50 in Hong Kong by terrence · · Score: 4

    I saw someone did the conversion in a computer mall in Hong Kong for around US $50. You pay the money and the guy will crack open your PalmV, pull the memory and resolder a new chip right in front of you in less than 15 minutes. It's really amazing. I think maybe these guys just have very steady hands. You can see more infomation about Palm upgrade here which is linked to the Singapore Palm User's Group Linked Web Pages.

    --
    -- Terrence Ma
  8. So far, so good, so what? by broody · · Score: 3
    So what, palm hacking is old news.

    This site is for hacking the IIIe/IIIx if anyone gives a fuck.

    --
    ~~ What's stopping you?
  9. 8mb upgrade, easy as pie. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    i did it, and it aint that hard. for more info go to : http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tew/m100hack/ alot easier, and better english!

  10. Palm OS will only address 12MB by gelfling · · Score: 3

    That's about it. The OS is limited in the amount of RAM it can address so 12MB is the max including ROM. I suppose you could build a 4MB ROM, flash it and add an 8MB RAM for a total of 12MB but that sounds like engineering for the sake of engineering.

    Also for those of you who aren't real familiar with the Palm be aware that more storage = less battery.

    1. Re:Palm OS will only address 12MB by killbill · · Score: 3

      Actually, while this is true, the TRG Pro includes an "autoCF" tool that will dynamically (and for the most part invisibly) swap applications and databases in and out of the memory in its compact flash slot.

      That means that my 8 meg TRG Pro has about 20 megs of applications and data loaded, and still has 4 megs free :)

      You are right as well about increased battery usage, but we should keep it in perspective... Even with some 26 Megabytes in my TRG Pro, I still get over a week at a time usage of rechargable alkalines (at about 65% discharge).

      Bill

      --
      Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
  11. Re:What's the Point? MP3! DivX! by deusx · · Score: 3

    Or, umm, you could put some handy books on it. For instance, I have the entire Perl CD Bookshelf on mine under iSilo, so I see the HTML version, pictures & all.

    Screw movies & mp3's. I want something useful in my pocket. Movies, I'll rent or buy for my DVD player. Music, I'll buy a dedicated mp3 player. That's not what my PDA is for.

  12. Interesting, settings wiped out of course... by Fross · · Score: 3

    a point to note if you want to try this, or anything else, is that all your settings on your palm will get wiped out - you can see this by comparing the "before" and "after" pictures on the kaizo site - the addressbook has dropped from 2k to 1k, presumably an empty minimum size.

    just bear in mind that not *everything* gets backed up in a hotsync. but apart from that, happy hacking!

    fross