I have a Garman iQue that had Palm OS with an integrated GPS. Using the GPS feature without it being plugged in I got maybe 30 minutes of use if I was lucky. It was the first and last PDA I ever had. It's been in a box in my closet for over a decade. I don't remember when it came out. It was sort of like the first iPhone without the phone calling. But the handwriting transcription was fascinating. Mark On 12/7/21 13:30, Jeffrey Jonas via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
According to Wikipedia, The Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000 were the first generations of PDAs <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assistant> produced by Palm Computing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_(PDA)> (then a subsidiary of U.S. Robotics <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Robotics>). It was introduced in March 1996.
Is anyone still into them? Are there any surviving archives or repositories?
I reluctantly retired my Palm PDA as my electronic calendar because my Android phone's Google calendar is always with me and auto-syncs to other devices :-/ But I have heaps of accessories worthy of keeping them running for other uses.
I remember when the trains were full of business people "beaming" each other contact info and notes using the Palm Pilot, Casio BOSS or Sharp Wizard. Now it's just a cellphone app :-/
Citing Sharp Wizard - Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Wizard> The *Sharp Wizard* is a series of electronic organizers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_organizer> released by Sharp Corporation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Corporation>. The first model was the *OZ-7000* released in 1989, making it one of the first electronic organizers to be sold.
Citing Throwback Thursday: The "personal organizer" we had before the Newton : Apple World Today <https://www.appleworld.today/2015/05/28/throwback-thursday-the-personal-organizer-we-had-before-the-newton/>
Back before the Newton MessagePad made a splash in 1993 as the first “Personal Digital Assistant”, several consumer electronics companies were making handheld devices designed to do all of the things that we take for granted now on our iPhones and Apple Watches — take short notes, check our calendar, make appointments, and look up phone numbers. One of these devices was the Casio B.O.S.S. SF-8000 ... B.O.S.S. stood for “Business Organizer Scheduling System.” This device came out in 1990
And there's the first smartphone:
IBM Simon - Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon>
IBM debuted a prototype <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype> device, code named "Sweetspot" in November 1992 at COMDEX <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMDEX>
Telxon made handheld barcode scanners that were essentially PDAs, as early as 1983 but I cannot find any references. Does anyone have any pointers?
-- jeff jonas