On the occasion of my acquiring a new hand-held computing device, I thought I’d try to list all of the little computers that I’ve used over the years.
I’m not too sure about the order of some of these, but never mind. Back in the mid-1990s, I was CTO for the Network Software group under Terry Keeley, and I was travelling a tremendous amount and needed mobile email. I obtained an HP-200LX, an MS-DOS system with an 8088 clone, 4MB RAM (some for program memory, some for RAM disk), and apps like Lotus 1-2-3 in ROM. I had a Motorola wireless modem which used the RAM wireless network to exchange email (slowly!).
Like everyone else, I got a Palm Pilot soon after they first came out. Unlike most, I managed to get hold of the ultra-cool clear plastic case version. Over the years I had a number of other Palms and clones: a Palm III, a Palm V, and a Visor Edge.
I played around with Microsoft’s fumblings in this marketplace, buying both clamshell and palm-style Casio Cassiopeias. I never really liked any of them, and by the time Microsoft and Compaq got it right with the iPaq, I’d moved on.
I was inevitably intrigued by the idea of running Linux on a hand-held system, and so when rumours started appearing about the Agenda VR-3 I was one of the first to plonk down my dosh. I joined the developer group, set up the toolchains, rebuilt the kernels, the whole bit. As an experiment, it was great. As a practical PDA, it was useless. Oh, well. I understand that a new company has bought up the assets and is making a new attempt to productise it.
Hard on the heels of the Agenda came the Sharp Zaurus. Surely with the weight of a major consumer electronics company behind it, this was going to be a different kettle of fish. I bought an SL-5000D developer unit, set up the toolchains, downloaded all the pieces, rebuilt everything, did the whole Linux geek bit, played with the embedded Java VM, got a CF 802.11 card for it, and was able to surf the web, send and receive email, everything. It’s still running, sitting on my desk next to my PC. I just opened a terminal window and typed uptime, and it reported 45 days. So why don’t I use it every day? Well, before I get on to that, I have some more units to discuss.
I’ve always been intrigued by the idiosyncratic British computer industry. 20 years ago it seemed that only the US, UK, Japan and USSR were actually developing original computer architectures. By the turn of the millennium, it was down to the US with a minor role for the the UK and a stealth move by the Japanese to change the rules using videogames. But in the UK there was still ARM, who seemed to own the embedded CPU architecture space, and Psion, with a range of hand-held systems in various form factors. A few years ago the US company S3 decided to try its hand at PDAs by OEMing Psion’s entry-level model, the Revo. They called it the Diamond Mako. The effort was a fiasco, and in short order there were Diamond Makos available for chump change. So of course I bought one. It’s actually a very nice little machine, perfect for note-taking because of the beautifully-designed keyboard. Unfortunately the synchronization software is a bit lacking. This machine is also in almost daily use, as a game unit: there are a few games on it that my wife really likes.
PDA functionality is one thing, but what about communications? My HP-200LX had supported wireless email, and I still needed that capability. Unfortunately the RAM network was no longer available, so I looked around for alternatives. After using a variety of unremarkable cell-phones, I was an early customer for the Neopoint NP-1000, probably the first phone to have a really big screen with high text resolution. It also had a good suite of PDA-style applications and PC synchronization tools. Unfortunately it turned out to be excellent at everything except telephony! (Reportedly it was let down by a certain large supplier of telephony chip-sets….)
After bouncing around from provider to provider, and trying a variety of phones, I wound up with a Nokia 3650 GSM phone with AT&T. I find with this that I can access all of my email accounts (work, home, and Yahoo), I use the built-in calendar for my personal appointments, and my business appointments are handled through automated (scripted) text messaging. It works with my laptop using Bluetooth, for remote control, as a wireless modem, and to share files and pictures.
Which brings me back to the why of all this, and then to the new kid on the block. I tend not to use a PDA any more, because it’s just too much stuff to carry. My phone and my laptop do it all, and I can’t do without either of those. I guess I could move to something like a Treo 600 (the current alpha geek toy), but only because that keeps the number of tools to just 2.
One reason to keep the number of tools down is to make space for toys. I have an iPod, which is essential when travelling (but not at work, because everything on my iPod is also on my laptop). I used to carry a digital camera; now I only do so on vacations, because for ad hoc pictures my Nokia 3650 is quite adequate. And now I need to make room for my latest acquisition, a Game Boy Advance SP. I’m intrigued by the idea of a sub-$100 system with a 32-bit ARM CPU, GPU, 96KB VRAM, 32KB fast RAM, and 256KB external RAM. (Good grief, there’s even been work on porting Linux to the beast!) But yes, first and foremost this is a games system – and despite the size, some of the games are really compelling.
I’ve actually been thinking about this for some time, but wasn’t sure whether this would work for me. I got lots of sound advice from the 8-year old son of a colleague in California. Then my friend Hannah was good enough to lend her Game Boy Color to me to get some first-hand experience, and I rapidly concluded that the form factor was right, the games were good, but my 53-year old eyes needed the larger screen and the back-lighting of the GBA SP. And when all’s said and done, it’s just a $99 dollar computer – a slightly bizarre notion, but what the heck.
Anyway, I must now get back to my persona in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. I believe my party of adventurers is under attack….