The Null Device

I just picked up a Handspring Visor Deluxe handheld to replace my dead Pilot 5000. It was a choice between this one and the slimline Visor Edge, both heavily discounted, but I went with the Deluxe, because (a) the only advantage of the Edge is that it's slimmer and sexier-looking (not something I look for in a handheld computer), (b) this one was cheaper, and (c) I don't like the idea of a PDA with volatile memory running on an internal rechargeable battery (as those degrade over time).

Now to get it working with Linux...

¶ gadgets handspring palm pda personal 4

It looks like my Pilot (an ancient US Robotics Pilot 5000, not one of those new-fangled PalmPilots) is cactus. The touch screen finally gave out, and now varies between locking the machine up and not working at all. I've managed to get the data off it, and now am looking at what to replace it with. (I'm thinking of going with a Psion.)

¶ palm pda personal 3

I recently got an Agenda VR3 through work. The VR3 is a PDA, a small device, physically not unlike a PalmPilot. The main difference is that it runs Linux; when you turn it on, you see the Linux boot messages scrolling past in a tiny font, and then the familiar X11 stippled background. There is also a Terminal application which gives you a UNIX shell (one of those tiny stripped-down rescue-disk shells, mind you; everything on the Agenda is done with economy in mind). How useful that is is another matter; the handwriting recognition system also seemed a bit slower and more erratic than the PalmPilot's (even than my aging Pilot 5000, whose digitiser seems to be going senile), making entering UNIX commands somewhat painful.

The software built into the Agenda is what you'd expect: notes, address book, scheduler, &c. However, much of it is somewhat rudimentary compared to the Palm. For example, there is no way to tell the scheduler to display days from 2pm to midnight, rather than the hegemonic 9 to 5 of the Morning People who rule the world, and adding events means going through dialogs.

The Agenda probably won't replace my aging Pilot; however, the fact that it's Linux-based and hackable raises some interesting possibilities.

¶ agenda vr3 gadgets linux pda tech 0

I was thinking that my next PDA would be a Psion, but now I'm thinking that one of these may be better.

¶ agenda vr3 gadgets linux pda psion 0