2021-08-30 A 6AM dive into PalmOS getting started with use of.
Tags: palmos
Published: 2022-02-05 18:45:59

This post mirrors https://g.mikf.pl/gemlog/2021-08-30--a_6am_palmos.gmi and is back from August 30th, 2021.

This post, in most parts, corresponds to the following fedi&twitter thread

https://functional.cafe/web/statuses/106843043909812967

https://twitter.com/mika_feiler/status/1432185314051870723

I wanted to try using a PalmOS device again, for self-organizing.

It quickly turned out that freewarepalm.com is dead these days; the domain taken over by some small blog, with the logo seemingly also taken from the original site. Last good snapshots on webarchive are from 2015. Most downloads are not available on webarchive.

[here you can see a listing of all that was archived from the _download/ path of freewarepalm](http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.freewarepalm.com/_download/*)

After getting reminded of a lot of stuff that i used to install, i chose my primary need to be the software for entering Polish characters (ąęśćżńóź) with the Graffiti modifier gesture, and the better clock selector I knew that I once got a license from its author from.

I quickly found the GMail email back from 2014 where I emailed Szymon Ulatowski and got a license code for ClockSelector corresponding to my HotSync username in an enthusiastic and cordial reply.

[Szymon Ulatowski's ToySpring's ClockSelector](http://toyspring.com/clock)

Then I went to find

[Interpilot website](http://sergem.net/interpilot/)

which referred me to use a new piece of software "PiLoc" instead, for which the duckduckgo finds were

https://palm.penreader.com

    which turned out to only link to defunct parts of Paragon Software website for downloads, and

http://palmgear.penreader.com/PalmOS/PiLoc/Polish_PiLoc.html

    which linked to either defunct palmgear website mirror or to a piloc.penreader.com defunct cgi "Download Wizard"

I have a recollection of the names of both Interpilot and PiLoc from my old days.

The downloads for Interpilot on its website work well so Interpilot is what I will go with.

Then I went on to learn J-Pilot is available in neither Nixpkgs (Nix/NixOS) nor HaikuOS's Depot but that wasn't that unexpected; the good news is that J-Pilot has reached 2.0 in 2021, with main change being GTK3.

https://jpilot.org

I'm somewhat thinking of writing my own utility, maybe native to Haiku, maybe made to be client-server for the cradle to be stationary with a Raspberry Pi in a corner.

Then I dug up an old "#PalmOS" tweet from an old Twitter account of mine, dating back to August 2012 when I was 13yrs old.

    I've just found an old website with some great apps for #PalmOS which I used a long time ago, created by their authors. http://is.gd/AYXVkQ

[mikemccollister.com, you need to navigate to "Mike" at least these days](https://mikemccollister.com/)

And there was ScreenPrefs among the programs there, a utility that allowed to select the color pallette for the device to operate in, iirc allowing to increase it greatly! A great find!

Also contains "McNits: Mike’s Palm Programming Nitpicks"

    McNits is a series of articles that I wrote for the “Handheld Computing Developer” website. They are a compilation of nitpicks that I have concerning those not-so-great Palm OS programs. Some of these are suggestions brought forth by PalmSource, some by me, others are just common sense.

    […] a series of articles to help Palm OS developers create high quality and consistent programs.

And also some tips on increasing productivity with the simple MemoPad utility.

That stuff, especially the software downloads, especially ScreenPrefs, I need to later make sure web.archive.org/save will grasp well or if it won't want to then I will host at least ScreenPrefs on an own website just in case. 2021 makes me even more sick of PalmOS resources link rot!

https://medium.com/geekculture/howto-using-the-palm-pda-in-2021-3f49ae589bb6

https://uxdesign.cc/palm-os-how-does-it-look-today-f1c3c29f2240?gi=a2c77e11aac1

These two articles contain a few nice links.

I'm thinking of writing some software for PalmOS, like an offline Gemini browser, a tool for writing gemlogs and having them published on a HotSync…

My Tungsten T has dead battery, two Vx surely too but also I don't have the power adapter for their cradle, Zire 71 has the LCD broken once (it was so very delicate!), I started a IIIxe with batteries and that's what im gonna use, but maybe I will also check on that Z22's battery

Here at parents' I would need to dig a bit to find a miniUSB-B cable but i recall that Z22's battery always used to manage to last for quite a while and even if it will no more it is still a handy although excruciatingly small device that has a neat miniUSB. So imma grab it, and im boarding a train back home tomorrow.

Also I remembered I had a collection of PalmOS programs on my account ("hamster") on a Polish file hosting site Chomikuj.pl (hamster as a verb, imperative). Everything uploaded there is dated 2010 when I was 11 years old.

http://chomikuj.pl/michalekus1998/programy+i+inne+rzeczy+do+system*c3*b3w+operacyjnych+i+OS*27*c3*b3w/PalmOS(TM)

It is quite a mess but most of that stuff is no longer findable anywhere else.

In the parent directories you can also find stuff like a Fluxbox theme that I derived from Debian's and decided to publish at 11yo.

The reason why i want to use PalmOS for stuff like todos and appointments is because Android phones are a mess, apps on capacitive touchscreen are inferior, notifications are a mess especially as MIUI removes control over notifications' priority once again. I already use paper notebooks and I want something more smart, in pursue of clarity and untediousness. Most input into the pilot gonna be journalled into paper anyway tho lol, can't trust there won't be hardreset-prompting segfault or batteries won't run out.