From: dale@mkseast.uucp (Dale Gass)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.palmtops
Subject: Random Musings on the PC-3000
Date: 19 Aug 92 23:51:19 GMT
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems, Atlantic Canada Branch

Well, I picked up a Sharp PC-3000 last week; I'm quite impressed with the
unit overall, and thought I'd tell some of my findings here, for those who
might be considering it.

The battery life (3 AA's) isn't overwhelming...  Since I didn't see any
warning in the manual that serial port usage would shorten battery life,
I spent one evening using a terminal program over the serial port.  Within
a few hours the brand new Duracell batteries were dead!  Also, I had
the clock speed at 10mhz (the default) instead of 5mhz, which might not have
helped matters.

(There is a warning that DD, the device driver which allows mounting remote 
file systems over the serial port, will shorten battery life significantly.
I assume that any serial port usage has the same effect.)

Well, with that lesson learned, I put a new set of Duracell's in.  They
lasted a few days of moderate use during the evenings.  Still not the 
30 hours they claim (with an average of 10% CPU activity).  I did use
laplink to transfer a few file (maybe a few minutes online total); maybe
that shortened things.

The next set of batteries I tried were the cheapie Radio Shack AA's
(about $2 for 3).  These lasted a couple of days of evening use (and
again, some LapLink'ing), and seem to be a better value than the 
Duracell's.

One thing mentioned in the manual is that you can't use rechargeables,
since they don't provide the voltage required.  (Typical non-rechargeables
start off at around 1.5 volts, rechargeables at 1.25 or so.)  The Duracells
were at about 1.15-1.20 when the unit warned me that they were low.  I'm
now trying out a set of rechargeables anyway, which seem to be working so 
far.

I'm going to pick up the AC adapter, grudgingly.  Hopefully if I only use
the serial port when the AC adapter is connected, my battery life will
be extended.  I don't mind having to use an AC adapter when using the
serial port; if I'm near something to connect to, I'll be near an outlet,
anyway.  I'm not thrilled with the $70 price tag on the adapter, and
the non-standard jack to force you to buy theirs.  (I don't completely buy
the story that you *need* their superior adapter [6.3V, 800mA] to protect the 
PC.  If I can find the jack, I'll make my own, first.)

Another small concern is the limited storage space in the standard
PC-3000.  You have 1Meg, 640K of which is (typically) used for main
memory, leaving 360 for a ram drive (backed up by the main batters, and
by the lithium battery for short periods during batter changes).  There's
also a fully non-volatile drive (77K or so), used for the scheduler
and other built-in programs, and for any crucial user data.  It's better
than the Poquet, though, and you can use standard PCMIA cards (2 of them)
for additional memory.  You can take part of your 640K main memory and
add it to the RAM disk, as well (although that involves backing up/restoring
the RAM disk.)

Other than the battery life concern, the AC adapter price, and the limited
default storage, I'm very happy with it.  I find the keyboard very usable 
for extended periods of touch typing, the display very readable, and the 
built-in software to be useful.  There's no terminal program in ROM, but I 
have a small one which works fine.  Also, the worksheet is quite slow.

The clock speed is switchable between 5Mhz and 10Mhz from a pop-up menu;
after one battery change, the menu showed the clock speed at *3* Mhz,
and things seemed proprortionately slower.  After resetting it to 5, I
couldn't get it back to 3.  It seems that there must be a bit more 
flexibility there than the pop-up menu allows.

The alarm feature of the scheduler is quite nice; it will pop up with an
alarm even when the unit is off.  (INT 4A appears to be generated at the
appropriate time-of-day to kick off the alarm.)

It's not exactly up for a full install of Borland C++ 3.0, but for note 
taking, appointments, terminal programs, and a wide variety of other uses, 
it's terrific.

I might post some more technical tricks as I discover them...  (Any PC-3000/
3100 users might want to drop me a note, and maybe we could start a 
mailing list...)

-dale
-- 
 Dale Gass, Mortice Kern Systems, Atlantic Canada Branch
Business: dale@east.mks.com, Pleasure: dale@mkseast.uucp