Japanese PDA Hacks and Customizations

the80y writes "For some of us hacking everything we own is obligatory. Well for all of us of this nature who own a Palm or Visor check out this Japanese site @ 'Palm de COOL!' it has the most intense customizations i have yet to see. I just wish I was fluent in Japanese not every thing is mirrored in English. Does any one know if there are similar sights in English espeacialy relating to replacement cases (i.e. clear cases) available for the Palm IIIc?" My favorite is the crank to power a palm if your battery dies. Unfortunately I haven't watched enough anime to translate this stuff *grin*. Anyway, you can figure out a lot of this just from the pictures and the english parts.

Comments

Crank?

[MWoody]

I dunno... I'm not sure I like that 'crank' idea:

Me: "Damn, batteries out again. Well let's try this crank thingy... *grunt* Wow, this is tough. *grunt* *heave* *whiirrrrrrr* *grunt*"

Housemate: "Martin, what ya doin' in there?"

Me: "Just turnin' the old Palm crank."

Housemate: "Uh, have fun..."

My reputation is bad enough after the hamster incident, thank you very much.
---

Interesting site, who was the guy in the robe?

[BluedemonX]

It was a neat idea - get two guys in a stadium surrounded by odds and ends of electronics and Nipponese kitch, give em an hour to see what kind of mods they can come up with.

"Fuzui-san!"

"Go ahead!"

"Looks like he's going for a "change the LED's to pink" modification. Oh no! Some solder's dripped down the side and marked up his Bad Batdz-Maru clear case! That'll cost him points!"

But tell me, who was the "Aunty" looking guy in the robe with the eyeliner?

Solar Pilots

[DivideByZero]

You probably want to take a look at the Brass Cannon pages for information about a Solar recharging modification.

If you consider using the thin-film cells from Jade mountain, you can mount them on a standard 3Com/Palm flip lid, by using ring crimp-on connectors, positioned over the ears of the lid and the holes on your Pilot.

Translation

[tedtimmons]

Here's a translation of that article, courtesey of some online translator.

http://www.perljam.net/whatsnew-en.html

You're welcome.

-ted

PS if someone wants to go through and edit the html for grammar, they can email it to me and I'll repost it at the same location. email is slashdot-at-perljam.net

Re:What does this say about Japanese psychology?

[hey!]

There's probably some kind of deep cultural/psychological analysis to be made here, but there are some simple economic reasons for the Japanese obsession with miniaturization. The average Japanese home is much, much smaller than the average US home; energy is much, much more expensive. They have to import most of their raw materials. Therefore there is a greater advantage to making things small and efficient.

During the post WW2 reconstruction, there weren't many consumer goods to be had; Sony came up with tiny, reasonable quality, and affordable transistor radios. Up until WW2, "made in Japan" was a synonym for low quality, cheaply manufactured knock offs of western goods. Japan was able to turn its economic disadvantages into an unique capability to produce innovative, high quality, highly efficient, miniaturized goods. Quite possibly, this is a source of national pride, which could further explain the Japanese consumer preference for small goods.

Things to do to a color palm

[Black Art]

I have been waiting to get a color palm, so I could make a furry case for it.

Something about having a hairy palm pilot capable of viewing porn...

Japanese Translator...

[golemite]

you might want to try www.Elingo.com .. they have a somewhat functional japanese-english web page translator... of course their site is slow as is without the /. effect ;)

also the register reports that sony's Palm PDA has sold out on its first day in Japan already:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13182.htm l

Need source for clear *buttons*

[isaac]

Subject says it all. I've already polished my Palm V's casing to a shiny, chrome-like bare aluminum finish, but what I *really* would like is a source for clear buttons, specifically a clear power button, so I could put an LED under it and wire it to the appropriate hotsync pins to have it function as a TaleLight.

The problem is, while such replacement buttons are all over Japan, they're just not available in the states as far as I can tell. Worse, nobody will ship such a low-cost item overseas - not worth the hassle for a single order.

So, /. readers, I'm asking you - anyone have a line on these in the states?

-Isaac

Re:Need source for clear *buttons*

[DavidBrown]

A thought.

A friend of mine runs a small business in Japan called japanime.com. His company will purchase Japanese anime items on request. If you ask them nicely enough, they may be willing to look for clear plastic palm buttons...

Just say NO to plastic cases

[kzinti]

Plastic cases, clear or otherwise, may seem nice and tight when you first get them, but they'll eventually weaken -- especially if you carry your palm everywhere with you. I carried my Palm Personal for a couple of years until eventually its case was so loose I thought it was going to fall apart on me. I also blame the loose case with my Palm's flaky behavior in its last year -- a digitizer that wouldn't stay calibrated, and some display artifacts that sometimes showed up on the screen and wouldn't go away until I gave the case a twist just so.

Get a Palm V if you can afford it. If you can't afford it, save money until you can. It'll last longer, so you'll be better off in the long run. I just love my V; its rugged aluminum case has taken a beating without any ill effects. I've carried it for over a year now and it's as tight as the day it was new.

If you are absolutely hell-bent on replacing your original plastic case with something cooler, get one of those nuclear-hardened titanium jobs. Wicked, very wicked.

--Jim

Re:Just say NO to plastic cases

[wilkinsm]

I have a US-locale Palm V with the J-OS 1.9 extentions for Palm OS2.0 on it. Much nicer that these native plastic models.

The hack itself is only 18K, but the japanese fonts/dictionaries take about 200K. Do yourself a favor and make sure you get a 4MB model or higher if want to do serious multiligual stuff on it, as you will need to 'replace' most of the built-in english-only apps.

- Maikeru

Avert your eyes!

[KFury]

The last thing I need to read about is geeks hacking their palms...
Kevin Fox

Machined Aluminum

[fliplap]

The PalmV series has proved metal casing to be much more durable than plastic
This guy http://www.dave.com makes machined aluminum casing for the PalmIII series organizer, very nice, though costly

Let me be a nitpick and say...

[Enoch Root]

...it's Fukui-san!

Re:Why on a disk?

[Sludge]

You're far more likely to get someone to run and distribute the floppy disk version than you are to get someone to type in the code.

So somebody added that hand crank..

[update()]

My favorite is the crank to power a palm if your battery dies.

Apple fans will remember when the rumor sites were claiming that the forthcoming portable (which turned out to be the iBook) was going to be powered by a hand crank. See this old As The Apple Turns article.

It's not that ludicrous -- the wind-up generator technology is better than you might think, PowerPC's are very efficient, particularly G3s, and Apple did used to make the eMate, which might have been able to get away with hand-power with its flash memory and terrific battery life. Still, it was pretty ludicrous.

---------

Re:So somebody added that hand crank..

[linzeal]

I'd be damn scared of all those apple zealots with huge popeye-like forearms

what about...?

[zpengo]

Customized cases for the telephones that you use to call in to your Palm?