Obsolete PDAs as maker devices? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: Atlantis86
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 05, 2018, 04:07:10 pm
content: For some time I was "collecting" vintage PDAs, mainly Palm and Windows CE/Windows Mobile based, but also few using different operating systems.Now I am thinking... Maybe there is a possibility to use them for some maker project, instead of Raspberry Pi, Arduino or some Discovery Board? They are equipped with touch screens and number of buttons, in some cases there is some form of connectivity available (however using WiFi can be a little bit problematic in case of devices without WPA2 support). Usually there is also an audio input/output.Lack of GPIO lines could be a little bit problematic (however it is possible to walk around this issue by using RS232 flow control lines). CPUs are less powerful than modern ARMs, but still better than simple AVR chips, still used in Arduinos.So, where is the problem? Tools are the problem, lack of them to be precise. Palm website is long dead, there is no way to download latest SDK, compiler and other tools from "official" source. I suppose situation looks similar in case of Windows CE and Windows Mobile.Is there somebody still developing for those vintage platforms? Is it possible to get tools compatible with modern Linux (or at least original ones for Windows, to run on VM). Some documentation, tutorials and examples would also be nice.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2018, 04:26:35 pm
content: I don't know if anyone is developing for them or not, but somewhere I still have a BSquare WinCE development kit that was in a pile of "junk" they were throwing out where my friend's dad worked about 20 years ago. It uses a PC/AT motherboard form factor.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2018, 04:53:53 pm
content: Not much point when there are loads of super cheap Android smartphones.

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2018, 08:23:45 pm
content: I think they would be more interesting as a source of inexpensive handheld enclosures, with matching display included. I.e., rip the guts out but keep the chassis and the screen.Anyone else have a favorite way to get a portable handheld project with LCD, with a minimum of mechanical effort?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2018, 01:30:37 am
content: They're so tightly integrated that I think doing that would be difficult. The old PDAs are almost as jam packed inside as modern smartphones.

author: Atlantis86
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 06, 2018, 06:49:46 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on August 05, 2018, 04:53:53 pmEven the cheapest Chinese smartphone isn't as cheap as old PDAs lying in my drawer. Those are free.And even if you need to buy one, they are dirt cheap on eBay right now.Also, I've read some materials about PalmOS and Windows Mobile programming. It appears to be much easier then writing software for them than for modern Android devices. You need to know C/C++ and API looks relatively simple (especially in case od PalmOS).But the most important factor is reusing old devices. It is one of the central aspects of maker culture, so why not?Quote from: mark03 on August 05, 2018, 08:23:45 pmNo, I do not want to physically break them. Those kind of devices are already historical artifacts, or at least soon will be. There is only limited number of them and it will never increase. And if you have ready to use platform, with memory, CPU and some for of connectivity, why not to use it as it is?Quote from: james_s on August 06, 2018, 01:30:37 amI am not talking about hardware modding it. But in some cases it is possible to use existing interfaces.

author: DaJMasta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2018, 07:46:48 am
content: Unless you have a lot of the same device, is it worth the trouble?Things were less standard back then, there were more variants and operating systems with less solidified APIs and hardware requirements.... so unless you have a specific project with a specific device in mind, you've got to spend a lot of time mucking around in the details just to make something serviceable, then you get lower battery life, performance, integrated capability, etc. than more modern devices or even higher performance IoT parts.Imagine if you liked doing microcontroller based projects and instead of sticking to a handful of chips on a platform or two (like ATMegas on Arduino), what if you just picked a totally new micro with a different IDE for every project? An ATMega on Arduino, then a PIC in MPLab, then an STM32 in Cosmic, then an MSP430 in Code Composer......... why do that to yourself? If you have a large volume to make and choose a platform for a specific featureset, performance level, pricepoint, etc., then learning the new platform is probably worth it, but if it's low volume and fairly common tasks, it's much simpler to stick to what's standardized and what you know.So if you want to investigate each one and enjoy doing that, more power to you, but as a general platform for hobbyist projects.... it's a real tough sell over an android device, a raspberry pi, or an arm core Arduino or similar which have a number of options available, really well developed APIs, and plenty of example code and support for modern protocols.

author: a59d1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2018, 08:01:31 am
content: One word: drivers.Good luck finding memory map tables for the Sony Clié or the compilers and libraries used to build the firmware. It might be fun for a while, but once you get to dumping the flash from your third or fourth random shitty PDA from 2003, you'll just want to smash it.If the minimum wage for an electrical engineer in your country is more than $20, and it takes you more than two hours to get something working, you'd be better off buying a $40 Snapdragon Android from 2015 and mucking around with it.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2018, 11:52:24 am
content: Hey, watch what you're calling obsolete - I use my Palm TX every day![Edit: and can still sync it to Windows 7 64bit.]There's still a lot of Palm development information available, for instance the Palm Developer guide...http://4ourth.com/downloads/PalmDeveloperGuide_PalmOS.pdfFinding copies of the application development software might be a different matter though.If you're looking for a particular application, it's possible that I might have a copy.EDIT: If you're particularly interested in Linux development software then tryhttp://www.tldp.org/REF/palmdevqs/palmdevqs.pdfThe link to jimweller.net still works.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2018, 02:55:45 pm
content: Quote from: a59d1 on August 06, 2018, 08:01:31 amIf you look at everything this way you'd never have any hobbies. With most of the projects I build, financially I'd be better off getting a side job flipping burgers for minimum wage and use that money to buy toys. That's not really the point though.

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2018, 03:13:12 pm
content: Quote from: Atlantis86 on August 06, 2018, 06:49:46 amWell ok. But nowadays everyone already has, in their pocket, a platform with more memory, more CPU, and more connectivity... in short, a superset of what the old PDA had. The new platform also has the advantage that other makers can easily duplicate your efforts.

author: metrologist
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2018, 07:46:29 pm
content: I resisted the smart-device fad for as long as possible. I remember finding a discarded HandSpring Visor Neo PDA in a box on the side of the road - it had some accessory bits.Here are some wiki specs: Released in September 2001, the Neo featured an MC68VZ328 DragonBall processor clocked at 33MHz. It had 8MB DRAM, an IrDA-compliant infrared interface, and Handspring's standard Springboard slot. Neo sported a 160×160-pixel, 4-bit grayscale (16 shades of gray) display.It worked fine and after finding some astronomy programs, I was getting excited about the tech, enough that probably a year later I bought a used Palm T|X.More wiki specs: November 2005-2009, 128MB Flash memory and (1) SD/SDIO/MMC slot, CPU 312MHz Intel XScale PXA 270, 32MB Random Access Memory, 128MB Flash, Display 3.9in, 320x480 px TFT LCD, 16-bit color touchscreen, 802.11b Wifi, Bluetooth, IrDAHuge improvement and lots of apps. I used this very little before breaking down and getting my first smartphone.Would be neat to find a use for the old devices now, but probably a lot more hassle than using one of my old smartphones.

author: iMo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2018, 08:42:05 pm
content: The Makers like to share their designs. With such devices their audience would be pretty limited. They prefer devices/boards which are readily available and cheap.

author: jolshefsky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2018, 10:07:13 pm
content: I thought the same thing about a defunct Garmin GPS—graphical LCD, UI controls, and a water-resistant case with battery holders all in one! Sounded pretty awesome. The trouble was I would (a) need to reverse-engineer it, then (b) figure out "where to cut" to get access to something useful. The point was to avoid the problem of learning specific system design tools—as mentioned:Quote from: DaJMasta on August 06, 2018, 07:46:48 amI wanted to get access to the display and buttons and hook them into something I was familiar with (as if that's plural. It's PIC. 18F25xx variants and 12F683 to be exact, so I guess there are exactly 2.) But then I was in the same rabbit hole I was trying to get out of: the GPS would be a custom design ... and all that work to be able to finish exactly one project. For the next one, it would be reverse-engineering a Palm or something with all the same work and headaches.All that said, if you're still really into it, I would think that getting a development environment running would be your best bet and fastest path to actual results. I recommend a virtual PC of sorts—I use VirtualBox and have an Ubuntu installation and a Windows NT installation (both isolated from / completely disconnected from the Internet) running on my Macintosh Mini mid-2010. I find it's a trade-off of headaches to get stuff working correctly in a virtual machine, but I prefer those headaches to the ones of trying to get actual 20-year-old PC hardware to behave (e.g. I don't fondly recall the days of plugging in a USB device to have the CPU segmentation-fault, nor of trying to set the jumpers on a CD-ROM correctly on a secondary IDE bus.)