PDA memory lane
Jun. 22nd, 2009 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuI've been reminiscing lately about PDAs I have owned.
For a long time (starting in high school) I would print out calendars from my computer using custom software and update them with pen. After college, I started using Filofax binders, but I still printed out my own pages. I resisted buying a PDA for a long time after my friends started using them, because I had a system that worked for me.
My first PDA was a Handspring Visor. I bought it when I was put in charge of the Pageflex .EDIT project (so that would be around 1999 when they first came out) and suddenly had enough meetings on my schedule that I couldn't keep track of them all in my brain. I bought a portable collapsible keyboard by Targus which was great for taking notes during meetings, both at work and as clerk of the Zamir board.
My second was a Handspring Deluxe with the cell-phone modem. I bought it in Dec. 2000 because Zamir was about to go on tour to Florida and I wanted to be able to keep in touch with Heather. It was very useful for keeping connected to everyone when Tani was born two months early.
My third was a Sony Clie PEG-NX70V, which Amazon tells me I bought on April 25, 2003. It had a built-in camera and could take stills and videos. I thought that would be useful with a young child. I bought the 802.11b card for it, which was more useful than a cell modem that hardly ever worked. And it had a built-in thumb-board, which was a great idea except it was unusable because of the weight distribution of the unit. But the new PalmOS didn't run some of the software that I'd come to depend on from the Handspring, which was a constant frustration.
My fourth was a Zaurus, which I probably bought in 2005. It ran Linux, which was awesome --- I could write Java programs on it, compile them locally, and get it to do what I wanted. The PalmOS was always horrible to write code for. The built-in thumb-board on the Zaurus was perfect --- just the right spacing, right key travel, and it slid out from the bottom of the unit so the weight distribution was great. I missed having a camera, and I missed the rest of the Palm software suite, but having a Linux PDA with an 802.11b card was awesome.
Then one day I went to upgrade my Zaurus, and when I put the CF card into the slot I hadn't lined it up right and I broke off a pin. Ultimate tragedy.
Because they'd stopped selling the Zaurus in the US at that point.
Well, I wasn't going back to PalmOS because I had gotten spoiled by being able to actually develop software for my PDA, so I bit the bullet and my fifth PDA was a Dell Axim running Windows Mobile, with the wifi built in. And I loved it. Developing in C# Mobile was actually pleasant, and once again I was on a mainstream platform so I could buy most of what I needed. (The useless accessory that I bought this time was the VGA cable, which I used exactly once.)
Then last summer I started biking to work, and was looking to eliminate the bulk and weight in my pockets. And I started leaving my PDA home. I rarely miss it. I have a dozen or so index cards with a binder clip, and it suffices. (It's not even sophisticated enough to qualify as a Hipster PDA.)
Sure, every so often I wish I had some information at my fingertips that isn't in my index card collection. I want to look up someone's address, or the calendar for 2012, or a word in a Hebrew-English dictionary, or the text of a Talmud passage. Or I'm on line in the store and wish I could check my email. But these happen infrequently enough that it's not worth the hassle and expense of yet another piece of technology.
I don't know what my next PDA will be, or when I'll get it. I'm sure that at some point my needs will once again change, and I'm likely to find that a PDA or a "smart phone" is the right solution.
But I find it interesting to realize that the first PDA era of my life is actually over, and has been for a year.
For a long time (starting in high school) I would print out calendars from my computer using custom software and update them with pen. After college, I started using Filofax binders, but I still printed out my own pages. I resisted buying a PDA for a long time after my friends started using them, because I had a system that worked for me.
My first PDA was a Handspring Visor. I bought it when I was put in charge of the Pageflex .EDIT project (so that would be around 1999 when they first came out) and suddenly had enough meetings on my schedule that I couldn't keep track of them all in my brain. I bought a portable collapsible keyboard by Targus which was great for taking notes during meetings, both at work and as clerk of the Zamir board.
My second was a Handspring Deluxe with the cell-phone modem. I bought it in Dec. 2000 because Zamir was about to go on tour to Florida and I wanted to be able to keep in touch with Heather. It was very useful for keeping connected to everyone when Tani was born two months early.
My third was a Sony Clie PEG-NX70V, which Amazon tells me I bought on April 25, 2003. It had a built-in camera and could take stills and videos. I thought that would be useful with a young child. I bought the 802.11b card for it, which was more useful than a cell modem that hardly ever worked. And it had a built-in thumb-board, which was a great idea except it was unusable because of the weight distribution of the unit. But the new PalmOS didn't run some of the software that I'd come to depend on from the Handspring, which was a constant frustration.
My fourth was a Zaurus, which I probably bought in 2005. It ran Linux, which was awesome --- I could write Java programs on it, compile them locally, and get it to do what I wanted. The PalmOS was always horrible to write code for. The built-in thumb-board on the Zaurus was perfect --- just the right spacing, right key travel, and it slid out from the bottom of the unit so the weight distribution was great. I missed having a camera, and I missed the rest of the Palm software suite, but having a Linux PDA with an 802.11b card was awesome.
Then one day I went to upgrade my Zaurus, and when I put the CF card into the slot I hadn't lined it up right and I broke off a pin. Ultimate tragedy.
Because they'd stopped selling the Zaurus in the US at that point.
Well, I wasn't going back to PalmOS because I had gotten spoiled by being able to actually develop software for my PDA, so I bit the bullet and my fifth PDA was a Dell Axim running Windows Mobile, with the wifi built in. And I loved it. Developing in C# Mobile was actually pleasant, and once again I was on a mainstream platform so I could buy most of what I needed. (The useless accessory that I bought this time was the VGA cable, which I used exactly once.)
Then last summer I started biking to work, and was looking to eliminate the bulk and weight in my pockets. And I started leaving my PDA home. I rarely miss it. I have a dozen or so index cards with a binder clip, and it suffices. (It's not even sophisticated enough to qualify as a Hipster PDA.)
Sure, every so often I wish I had some information at my fingertips that isn't in my index card collection. I want to look up someone's address, or the calendar for 2012, or a word in a Hebrew-English dictionary, or the text of a Talmud passage. Or I'm on line in the store and wish I could check my email. But these happen infrequently enough that it's not worth the hassle and expense of yet another piece of technology.
I don't know what my next PDA will be, or when I'll get it. I'm sure that at some point my needs will once again change, and I'm likely to find that a PDA or a "smart phone" is the right solution.
But I find it interesting to realize that the first PDA era of my life is actually over, and has been for a year.