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Palm Roadkill 27th November 2003 I've been fascinated with PDA sort of things for a long time. I have a Filofax, even though I haven't used it in a very long time. I have various little gadgets, most of which pre-date the Palm devices. Agenda VR3 Philips Velo 1 Sharp Memo Master EL-6060 Casio Calendar Card CC-110C Agenda VR3 I bought this in 2001. I knew a guy who knew a guy who bought one of the developer editions of these things. He found no use for it, and it eventually got sold me to $100. Yes, I paid way too much for it. It's a little device like the Palm. It runs Linux. It's actually pretty cool to turn the thing on and see it boot into Linux with all the usual kernel bootup messages. However, there's so much wrong with this device. Mine worked well for a while, but chewed through batteries at an alarming rate. Then it started shortening the time before it would turn off without activity. This was independent of whatever I set it at. It got down to about 10 seconds of no activity and then it would turn off. Then it became reluctant to turn back on again. Right now, it won't turn on at all. I've put fresh batteries in it, and tricked it into rebooting. It still works for brief periods of time, but not enough to do anything exciting with. I turn it on, choose a menu option, it turns off. I turn it on again, choose the next menu option, it turns off. I turn it on again, get into the application I want, it turns off. Doing anything with it right now is an exercise in futility. So what's wrong with it? It's made of cheap plastic. Cheap see-through plastic. The battery cover has a loose screw to hold it down. The battery compartment has the springs for each battery at the wrong end. The graphics was all X. Print recognition was with some X program, and all the programs were X based. I like X. I use it all day long. But I do not want to use it on a limited device like a PDA. Hardly any software for it. The company folded. The developer community struggled on. My machine deteriorated. It never had the "pick me up and play with me" appeal. It looked like it could have had a lot of appeal, but everything was just too difficult to use. I managed to get it to boot. This shows part of the bootup screen. It's pretty wild to see normal Linux boot commands scrolling past on a little device like this. I couldn't get a clean focus with the camera, but I'll try again if I can get it to boot up again. Got to the login screen. The VR3 logo. The screen with application icons. The logo, and one of the main menus. I could never get it to hold still long enough to take any exciting photos, because it just keeps turning off after a few seconds. Philips Velo 1 I only acquired this a few weeks ago. It's a largish device that runs Windows CE. It has a stylus. No colour screen. The screen is difficult to read, unless you turn on the backlighting, and then the batteries die rapidly. Not very useful for most things, but it does have one major redeeming value. It has a phone jack in the side, and an internal modem, and modem software. You can use it to conduct business over the phone if your business involves simple dial-up connectivity. Otherwise it;s just a curiosity. Some websites talk about getting some small versions of Linux running on these devices, but those attempts appear to be minor hacks that still require Windows CE to initialise the devices. Sharp Memo Master EL-6060 In 1989, one of my co-workers bought this in Singapore. He didn't want it, so sold it to me. It's another credit-card sized device, same size as the Casio Calendar Card. I used it for years and years. It still works and it's still got old phone numbers in it. The user interface is pretty good. You can store names and phone numbers, and names and dates for anniversary type things. There's a password protected privacy mode. And it functions as a calculator. I loved it. It's still pretty nifty. Casio Calendar Card CC-110C In 1989, I bought this casio card in Singapore. It's the size of a credit card, only a litle thicker. The case comes with a slot at the bottom so you can prop the card in the slot. Presumably you set it beside your bed and use the alarm clock functions. The screen is pretty miniature, but you can move ahead and back in the monthly calendar and it works okay. It's a bit strange to see the day names at the top of the monthly calendar move around, rather than the days themselves, but that was probably the easiest way to do it back then. iF you're a light sleeper, the alarm will wake you. If you're a heavy sleeper, you won't hear it. I have slept through it in the past, but these days, I'm such a light sleeper that I would have no problems with the alarm. I'd have trouble setting the alarm, but no trouble waking with it. The battery died a few years ago and I never bothered replacing it. Once I started taking photos, I was curious whether it lived or not. It took a struggle to find the right battery, but Radio Shack helped me translate the old battery numbers to the current battery type, and I got a battery for it that worked. And it still works. Goes great. The user interface was strange, but I still remember how it works. Hold the Mode button down till the word Set stops blinking. Then press other buttons till you get stuff changed. Now that I've played with it a bit again and refreshed my memory, I can't imagine a way to imporve it. And it can't be all bad if I can still remember how to set it up after years away from it. [Palm Home] [Linux Home]