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Palm OS Wristwatch
countach writes "Amazon are taking orders for a new Palm OS Wrist Watch. It has an infra-red port, touch screen, back-light, stylus and 2MB of RAM. Price is $US 295.00." Because sometimes you don't look nerdy enough ;)
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How many /. readers wear calculator watches. I haven't seen 'normal' people wearing thos ein years! I wonder if it'll catch on again with these?
Totally Life!
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Am I the only one that remembered them quoting $149 for this watch back last fall when slashdot did the original story on it?
It could simply have been a mixup on the part of whoever submitted the story, since their old pda watches (non-Palm) were $149, but still, I got my hopes up until I saw the $300 price tag.
Well this is the second or third attempt at this, and according to a wired article from a couple of months ago, they broke some of the major rules in watch design in making this. One, and they admitted it is a big one, was exceeding the (percieved by the public) height limitation of a watch case.
I give it a couple of months at the most. Just like the last few designs. Palm sales are on the decline anyway, and I can't see a watch getting a better reception than some of really cool designs that are out now.
It gets even worse... When wearing an organizer on your wrist isn't geeky enough, try this. Just take a look at one of those in store. They are *huge*!!!
Here's another article on it. Apparently Microsoft will be introducing a competing product soon.
In the categorie of "why bother"... I bet that Linux will run on this. I imagine that in such a small package, the screen is controlled by the cpu's onboard lcd controller? The seems to be the major obstacle. It would have run just fine on my Palm IIIc if PicoGUI had a driver for the LCD controller that ships with that model (or if I had time to write a driver for them).
PicoGUI and Linux will run in this kind of situation (devices such as this and Palm IIIxe). In 2 MB, I'm not sure what exactly you'd accomplish except establish "wow" factor, but it'd be neat to try one afternoon.
Mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
Jeez louise, that first year they came out (before the Math teachers were aware of their existance) was sweet. You could just blantantly be fiddling with your watch during a math test and no one would know what you were doing. By the next year they'd caught on.
Are there any purists out their who don't allow calculators in math anymore? Last I checked almost all students use graphing calculators (wimps!)
Not quite as cool looking
:(.
They also have another model that looks (basically) exactly the same as the fossil one for $199. Its in this months Maxim or stuff or some generic mens non-boobies magazine. And yes, this was advertised last year for like $149. Way to double the price on us Fossil
It's not like you can't get organiser watches from the likes of Casio for much if you want that kind of thing, and I bet they last considerably longer than this. Come to think of it, why not just buy a Palm Zire for $120 and buy a really nice watch with the change?
... and about 20 years late to market. My old Seiko RC-1000 Data Terminal from 1983 did almost as much with 2K memory, 6 buttons and a 2-conductor serial interface to a TRS 100 / Olivetti M10 (software on cassette). No touch screen (thank goodness) but no market then, and no market now ... except for collectors ...
...
FWIW
You're thinking of fossil's other so-called PDA watch. This one runs Palm OS and has a 160x160 screen. It is a "real PDA." You can sync it to a PC, but you can also enter data directly into it with grafitti or an on-screen keyboard.
The Fossil uses a rechargeable battery - IOW, put the watch on a charger while you sleep. The onHand uses lithium coin cells that you have to pay to replace every few months. It also has a downright painful interface, compared to the button/rocker switch/touchscreen input of this fossil watch.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.