[HN Gopher] The Internet Archive just put 565 Palm Pilot apps in...
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The Internet Archive just put 565 Palm Pilot apps in your web
browser
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 42 points
Date : 2022-11-27 19:47 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| ckz wrote:
| I'm curious if we might see a [very] minor revival of these old
| devices since it's getting to be about that time.
|
| I'm back to using mine (a monochrome model of the same vintage as
| show in the Archive screenshots) and, in 2022, I'm even writing
| apps for it. It's actually a _ton_ of fun and ends up in my
| pocket far more than my phone.
|
| Graffiti is still _very_ intuitive. The display is a reasonable
| approximation of E Ink. Palm Desktop, hotsync, etc. all run fine
| on modern Windows machines, and I believe there are still viable
| Linux packages.
|
| Turns out that TCP/IP is still TCP/IP and pretty much everything
| still "just works" provided you understand what it's trying to do
| (e.g. not be an iPhone). Mine automatically caches and syncs a
| few websites (including HN) as a sort of offline daily reading.
| You _do_ need to appreciate the old Apple /iPod model where your
| computer is your hub and, for pre-wifi Palms, the network bridge.
|
| They're just extremely focused little devices and excellent at
| what they do (calendar, notes, etc.). Treat it like it's a
| digital notepad, more in the vein of a pocket ReMarkable, and you
| might find it holds up better than you'd think.
| hed wrote:
| I _still_ can't find a calendar app for iOS that's as nice to
| use as my Palm's. Making events that will happen at a certain
| time irrespective of time zone is just too beautiful for this
| world now.
| NikkiA wrote:
| No sign of LispMe!, how sad, I miss that scheme interpreter like
| crazy.
|
| Modern Android and IOS is ok, but Graffiti was a far more elegant
| input method than lousy virtual keyboards.
| tunap wrote:
| Direct Link:
|
| https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_palm
|
| Edit: The Software Library directory
|
| https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary
| furyofantares wrote:
| There was a variant of the 15 number sliding puzzle[1] that I
| really enjoyed on my Palm Pilot and have never seen replicated
| since, except by myself as a hobby project, and I've long wished
| to know who authored it and what exactly the original mechanics
| were.
|
| Basically it just had a series of puzzles that got harder by
| adding special "walls" between tiles that either prevented
| movement or performed a reversible transformation on the tiles
| that passed through (invert colors, rotate by 90 degrees,
| embiggen/shrink the tile, I don't remember the exact details of
| the original game but those are the ones I used).
|
| Sadly it's not listed here, I'm curious if anyone knows what I'm
| talking about.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_puzzle
| malux85 wrote:
| My first job was working at a company that made Palm pilot apps.
|
| We sold sales force automation software, and had to do lots of
| tricks to make it work in such low powered machines.
|
| Things like it was too difficult to sort a product file that has
| 200,000 items in it in real-time (E.g. to change from product
| codes to product description) so we had the server generate two
| lists each sorted and sent two over the gprs network to the
| devices. (Infrared connection to cellphone FTW!)
|
| As a young programmer this was the first time I was exposed to
| the concept of algorithmic complexity and the possibility of
| trading space for time. It blew my mind.
|
| Here I am 20 years later still coding and loving every day of it
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(page generated 2022-11-28 05:02 UTC)