Palm Pilot with Hard Drive

Russ Steffen writes "TRG, Inc, a maker of PalmPilot accessories has announced an interesting Palm clone. The TRGpro is similar to a normal Palm IIIx (OS3.3, 8MB RAM) with one major exception: it has a compact flash (CF) port. This means that only can you have more than 96MB of non-volatile memory in this thing, you can also have a 340MB IBM microdirve. Other interesting add-ons that can interface through a CF slot include a bar-code reader, a super-small v.90 modem, ethernet and a high-speed serial port."

Comments

Features Looking For Markets...

[Christopher B. Brown]

As you say, there are not a lot of ways, at present, for a PalmOS unit to consume such vast quantities of storage.

MP3's are one application that would chew up lots of space fairly quickly; another would be geographical maps, which would tie nicely in to a GPS card. A third "neat idea" would be to have a wireless network connection (and I'm not thinking cellular/PalmVII here).

Unfortunately, many of the things that would make such extra storage capacity useful represent peripherals that would require a "slot," and which thus might not fit in simultaneously with the disk drive.

And I shudder at the rate of battery supply depletion that would result...

Methinks these applications will remain "niched" for a while yet.

Re:Woah, now slow down a second...

[bgdarnel]

• Battery life on the TRGPro is comparable to existing devices while the CF slot is not in use. When it is in use, power consumption varies depending on the installed device. The flash storage cards aren't bad, but the IBM Microdrive can really eat batteries.
• The advantage of CF over springboard is interoperability - you can plug a CF card into a laptop, digital camera, etc, and share data directly. Springboard is quite PalmOS-centric.
• TRG is not an unknown in the handheld industry. They've been producing memory upgrades for older Palm/Pilots for years now. TRG as a company has had time to build up a reputation, although they don't have anyone with the personal reputation of Hawkins and Dubinsky.

Re:This is exactly my point

[roystgnr]

First you have the Palm. Then you add a modem. Then a bunch more RAM. Then arbitrary peripherals. Then color. Now a hard drive. Each of these adds complexity, size and cost--all of which are anti-thetical to the purpose of the original Palm.

Well, if by "the original Palm" you mean "those little palm-sized yellow post-it notes", then sure.

If you actually think that the original palm computers wouldn't have had color screens, hard drives, peripheral expansion, and modems had that been practical at the time, on the other hand, you're nuts. How is a tiny hard drive more complicated to the user than battery backed memory? It isn't, it's just more spacious. How does a color screen make things more complicated? Again, it doesn't. I guess you have to figure out that "complicated Internet thingie" to use a modem with your Palm, but that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make. And arbitrary peripherals, well, that involves the complication of buying the peripheral, plugging in the peripheral, installing software for the peripheral... but if you want to listen to your MP3 playlists on the road, it sure beats whistling.

Review of the TRGPro

[hal-j]

PalmStation has a hands on review of the TRGPro (The device in question here). Check it out here
-Hal

Just say NO to monolithic devices!

[deusx]

I have a Palm III. I have a Sony Vaio superslim 505TR.

I use my Palm as a "dreamcatcher" for my thoughts. It's small, it's quick, and it remembers. I, on the other hand, do not remember. And it's a simple device. It does what it's supposed to, and it does it well. That 'rut' to which you refer, is exactly where I want my Palm to stay.

I use my Sony Vaio as my development workstation, when I have a chance to set up on a table somewhere. It's bigger, quick, and remembers more. But it's also heavier, doesn't fit in my pocket. But it *does* have a bigger screen. So it's good for sitting down and coding.

I don't care what kind of leapfrogging we do past Moore's Law, but no matter how small the electronics get, I'm still going to need human interfaces of a size and shape compatible with my purposes. And, call me crufty, but I'm NOT impressed with headgear. I don't want VR, I don't want a 'virtual 36" screen' floating in front of me. I want an object (of the atomic kind) in front of me.

I want a small and simple device for quick things and a larger more complex device for longer term interaction. And I use them for different tasks.

So, I say, go, go gadget Palm.

Great for a lot of new reasons.

[Dan B.]

Forget the battery life and other whining. It's about portable storage.

Imagine the possibilities this opens for;

An integration consultant.
Client "Do you have and documentation on that?"
IT guy *whips out his PalmVII* "Can I use a printer? I have 300MB of PDF's on this card"
Client thinks 'Wow, that's cool. We should go with this mob'

Or for an engineer, no more lugging 40,000 pages in manuals around, etc.

The portable storage of information (forget music and MP3) is far more usefull that a lot of you people are giving cred to. 340MB can store an entire encyclopaedia (if you cut down on the pictures), and for a bit over $300, that's damn good value.

Remeber when ordering a manual set (for a large vehicle or machine) meant waiting for a 50kg box to arrive? Not anymore, they come on CD. Now when you're doing an on-siter You can keep all the infomation, litereally, in your shirt pocket.

This is exactly my point

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

This kind of thing is EXACTLY why I don't think network computers will ever get anywhere. (yes, I realize the Palm is not an NC--this is an analogy)

First you have the Palm. Then you add a modem. Then a bunch more RAM. Then arbitrary peripherals. Then color. Now a hard drive. Each of these adds complexity, size and cost--all of which are anti-thetical to the purpose of the original Palm.

As long as people continue to think "more is better" the network computer (and similar devices) will not last longer than it takes to fall down this slippery slope.

The correct mindset for this kind of device is exemplified by a (paraphrased) quote from Ton (last name?), the creator of Blender: "My favorite activity is taking code out of Blender."
---

Your pocket supercomputer...

[kcarnold]

is what the Palm seems to be heading for (I say supercomputer in the general sense, not just in the processor). But it can't be. Look at the niche here. Let's do a quick laptop vs. handheld computer comparison (I will use Palms, but most of it applies to any handheld computer):

• Laptops are super-fast, just a little slower than the desktops. Palms hit 33 mHZ last I checked, and it doesn't look like they'll get much faster. (There goes all of your ideas about playing MP3s with the hard drive)
• Palms are tiny. Laptops are just small. (See next two items.
• Laptops have a decent keyboard. You can type a research paper on them easily. There are fold-out-type keyboards for the Palm line (and the CEs), but it's not the same as having a full-sized keyboard.
• Some of the newer laptops have awesome LCD displays that make me drool. Laptops have been color for a long time, and DV on the new screens looks great. They are just now getting color into the Palm line, and that's going to hinder it a lot (battery life especially, but probably weight and speed will be issues as well). And that still doesn't solve the problem of them being tiny; I like to be able to see at least half a page of my letter at a time without squinting or using a magnifying glass '-(. And try playing DV on them.
• Some swear by one, some swear by the other, some swear by wierd stuff, and some, like me, don't care, but there are basically two types of screen-positional input (read: mouse) on laptops: trackpad and integrated mouse ball. I haven't seen a laptop with a touch screen; maybe there is one. Palms have touch screens with those sleek-looking styluses (is that the correct plural?). But no mouse (pardon my grammar). Accordingly, Palms have handwriting recognition, Graffiti. Some people have better luck with Graffiti than others. To me, it's more like writing on paper than typing is.
• If there are any more aspects that I missed, feel free to reply to this message

There is obviously a different niche for these two classes of devices. One cannot reasonably expect to enter the realm of the other successfully. If the Palm becomes too bloated with all these extra features, I'd rathar just dump it and buy a laptop, especially with some of the advantages that I mentioned above. But you still can't beat carrying it in your pocket. There is only so much you can fit into that little package without making it bigger (and therefore not fit in your pocket anymore).

Please, guys, keep the palm in Palm, and the lap in laptop. ("Notebook" is a better term, when it is clear that you are referring to the size of the computer. Good luck getting a real notebook to run Linux :-)

Kenneth Arnold

PS - I want a laptop. Badly.
Real PS - My sig is stupid. I'm changing it as soon as I sumbit this.