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The History of PDAs in Words and Pictures

Posted by timothy on from the pokeable-damageable-angular dept.

evanak writes "For the past four years, I've been studying the history of PDAs. It's all summarized in a 10,000-word article on my web site." This history is also illustrated with some pictures and photographs, which are worth it all by themselves.

12 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. 1996-2005 by donnyspi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The whole part between 1996 and 2005 seemed to be a blur in the article. Other than that, it was a good summary with some interesting pics.

  2. Not PDA-friendly by Tx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nice of the author to use a 950 pixel fixed-width table for his article, you'd think an article on this subject would be written so as to render nicely on a PDA.

    --
    Oh no... it's the future.
    1. Re:Not PDA-friendly by lheal · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sometimes web designers fall in love with their own creativity and forget that the content is what matters. It's surprising to me that more HTML coders (or CSS coders or autogenerators) don't do this the "right" way:

      <table border=0 width="99%">
      ....
      </table>
      With a percentage-width tag, the box forms to the width of the window and you avoid a lot of problems.

      Then, of course, is the question of why there has to be a box at all.

      --
      Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
    2. Re:Not PDA-friendly by Saeger · · Score: 4, Interesting
      You know why newspapers are written in multiple columns, instead of flowing to fill the page? It's faster, easier reading when your eyes only have a short distance to dart to get to the next line.

      This is the #1 (valid) reason people still use fixed width designs when they could use a completely liquid layout instead. It's hell to read a 100% width article on a large monitor even after blowing up the fontsize. The preferred solution is to use use min-/max-width CSS.

      --
      Power to the Peaceful
  3. Microsoft devices? by David+Horn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You seem to have missed out the whole Microsoft / Palm battle, and the newest evolution of Pocket PCs, with VGA screens, 3D accelators and 624MHz processors.

    You can even get a Playstation emulator to run smoothly on the newest ones.

    --
    PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
  4. Last paragraph by aardwolf64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's seriously annoying. The guy writes an article on PDAs, then dismisses the past 15-18 years with one paragraph. What about the introduction of color?

    Here is the history of the PDA. I've spent 940 words on calculators, 40 words on actual PDAs, and 20 words on the massive changes that have occurred in the past 15 years.

  5. re: Partial List of Handheld Computers in sci-fi by mynameismonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There are six words missing from this 10,000 word essay; "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

    It featured hypertext, multimedia content objects, a wiki-like browsing interface and of course collaborative document editing (which sounds bad but was mostly harmless).

    Sturdy, rugged, built to take all kinds of knocks, apparently easily recharged despite country (or planet, for that matter) and quite affordable. All pre-1980.

    --
    -- Religion is not an exact science
  6. Missing Option: Psion 5 Series by G4from128k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To me, the Psion 5 series is the ultimate PDA. It has a full suite of Office and PIM applications, compact size, a usable keyboard, decent screen size, and stellar battery life (35 hrs on-time with off-the-shelf AAs). Detractors might point to the lack of hand writing recognition, color, and MP3 playing, but I have absolutely no use or interest in those features (apparently, I am in a very small minority).

    Currently, there is absolutely nothing on the market that is remotely as good as the 5 series -- everything these days sucks in battery-life or keyboard or both.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  7. Atari Portfolio by rindeee · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I had an Atari Portfolio back in 1990 (I think it was 1990) and I still like it better than any other I've had. Mind you, it's not that it worked better, or was more capable. It's more an issue of capability for it's day and the fact that it was made by Atari of all companies. It was just an amazing little device that I could use in place of my laptop at the time (a Dell 386/SX-16). I wish I still had it just for fun. What a neat little device.

  8. this disgusts me... by 0110011001110101 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    FTFA - In his early 20s, Pitroda received the patent. "There was no contest at all. I got all the claims in one shot," he said. He shared the idea with colleagues at American Express and with Noyce, but neither pursued it. Lacking other investment resources, Pitroda put the invention aside. "I think it was too far ahead of its time. I didn't have the muscles to do it myself," he said. He moved back to India in 1982 and returned to Chicago in 1991, where he saw PDAs becoming commonplace. In court, he won royalty settlements from Casio, HP, Radio Shack, Sharp, and Texas Instruments.

    So not only did this guy give birth to the idea of PDAs.. but also to the idea of patenting something general and sweepingly broad, and then suing later when somebody who isn't too lazy implements his idea... wonderful!

    --
    Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
  9. One notable absence... by Aphrika · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Microwriter Agenda. While the linked article incorrectly mentions it was the first PDA, it did have one very inetersting feature; built into the right hand side of the device was a 5-key microwriter input system which allowed for 'blind' input. This is a variant of a chorded keyboard - quite an interesting read.

  10. What, no mention of IntelliSync/sync software? by mveloso · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One thing that everyone forgot about is that in the early days of PDAs there wasn't a really good way to move information between your PIM (Personal Information Manager) and your PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).

    For those lucky enough, you could get your secretary to do it. For everyone else, well, the process involved a lot of typing. And PDAs weren't really made for data entry, as you can imagine.

    Enter IntelliSync, by IntelliLink. They were the first (I believe) data synchronization software independent of the manufacturer or OS. In fact, they were often rebranded by the manufacturer.

    They made it less painful to synchronize with your PDA. As a bonus, it was possible to move between handhelds by synchronizing to your data from one source to another.

    This, of course, was before the Palm Pilot, which probably had the best information synchronization feature of any PDA to date. Instead of being an add-on, it was "part of the package" and worked really well. That, coupled with the small form factor and massive (for the time) data capacity made the US Robotics Palm Pilot a must-have.