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Handhelds Hardware

The History of PDAs in Words and Pictures 130

Posted by timothy from the pokeable-damageable-angular dept.
evanak writes "For the past four years, I've been studying the history of PDAs. It's all summarized in a 10,000-word article on my web site." This history is also illustrated with some pictures and photographs, which are worth it all by themselves.
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The History of PDAs in Words and Pictures More

The History of PDAs in Words and Pictures

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  • 1996-2005 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by donnyspi ( 701349 ) <junk5&donnyspi,com> on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:12PM (#12546203) Homepage
    The whole part between 1996 and 2005 seemed to be a blur in the article. Other than that, it was a good summary with some interesting pics.

    • Re:1996-2005 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Deinhard ( 644412 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:18PM (#12546283)
      I totally agree. While the page title is "history of PDAs" the document title is actually "The Evolution of PDAs."

      While it could be argued that since the introduction of the Pilot 1000, PDAs haven't "evolved" much (except the merger with cell phones), there has been an explosion of types and functionality. The proliferation of commercial, shareware and freeware applications for the Palm OS led to the explosion of usage. Now, just about everyone can find an industry-specific application that is useful.

      Also, the form factor and specifications have improved dramatically as well. The transition from the Pilot 1000 to the Tungsten T3 is worthy of its own essay.
    • I especially like the movies. Those should last all of 30 seconds after people actually RTFA.

      The thing I noticed was the lack of mention (other than in the bottom) of the TRS-80 [old-computers.com]. It certainly qualifies as a PDA as much as the other early PDAs, as it has a notekeeper, and I believe a Real time clock. Since it was easily programable, you could use it as a simple scheduler.
    • The whole part between 1996 and 2005 seemed to be a blur in the article.

      Maybe that's because the HEADLINE reads "1975-1995".
      • How did the grandparent ever get modded up? What a silly complaint! The author of TFA wanted to present the historical research on the precursors to the PDA. He simply stopped at the beginning of the modern era. Nothing wrong with that.

        Besides, covering PDAs from 1995 to present would take more than 10000 words all by itself. Here's hoping he tries it, though.

  • 10,000 words (Score:5, Funny)

    by RangerRick98 ( 817838 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:15PM (#12546240) Journal
    Whoa, 10,000 word article! You expect me to read that? Besides, there's like 17 pictures on there. With the conversion rate, that's 27,000 words! Forget that, buddy!

  • Not PDA-friendly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tx ( 96709 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:15PM (#12546245) Journal
    Nice of the author to use a 950 pixel fixed-width table for his article, you'd think an article on this subject would be written so as to render nicely on a PDA.

    • Re:Not PDA-friendly (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lheal ( 86013 ) <lheal1999NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:29PM (#12546424) Journal

      Sometimes web designers fall in love with their own creativity and forget that the content is what matters. It's surprising to me that more HTML coders (or CSS coders or autogenerators) don't do this the "right" way:

      <table border=0 width="99%">
      ....
      </table>
      With a percentage-width tag, the box forms to the width of the window and you avoid a lot of problems.

      Then, of course, is the question of why there has to be a box at all.

      • Re:Not PDA-friendly (Score:4, Insightful)

        by donnyspi ( 701349 ) <junk5&donnyspi,com> on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:53PM (#12546659) Homepage
        CSS people know that table tags are only for presenting data, not for formatting a web page. Try DIV instead.
        • CSS takes stuff and splits it across multiple files. It also zooms poorly, as it often seems to make assumptions about the resolution I'm running at.

          Tables are fine for formatting a web page. CSS might be the perfect, but tables are definitely the good. And the good has been working and tested for some time, and the perfect is still a bit away from perfection.

      • Re:Not PDA-friendly (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:56PM (#12546701) Homepage
        You know why newspapers are written in multiple columns, instead of flowing to fill the page? It's faster, easier reading when your eyes only have a short distance to dart to get to the next line.

        This is the #1 (valid) reason people still use fixed width designs when they could use a completely liquid layout instead. It's hell to read a 100% width article on a large monitor even after blowing up the fontsize. The preferred solution is to use use min-/max-width CSS.

        • I live on the other end of that. I have a crap 800x600 monitor, which won't fit most of these fixed width sites with a fullscreened browser. Its outright bad design IMO. Though occasionally they just end up cropping off all their ads and it still reads well.

          EVEN WHEN I had a non-sucky monitor that easily fit fixed width pages, it was a problem. I don't want my browser taking up the whole friggin' display, I used a windowed browser 100% of the time. The fixed width sites often had different widths, now I wa

        • Re:Not PDA-friendly (Score:3, Insightful)

          by roystgnr ( 4015 )
          It's hell to read a 100% width article on a large monitor even after blowing up the fontsize.

          By "it's hell", do you mean "I have to shrink my browser window horizontally"? Those of us who like reading 100% of our screen width can't widen fixed-width pages, but a page that respects the reader's browser preferences can be as narrow as you want it to be.
          • Allowing the client to specify formatting and layout was an OK-sounding idea that didn't pan out. Information producers want to control the presentation. In practice, it's not just the formatting that should vary from a full-sized monitor to a 150x150 PDA screen (or a pager), but the content itself.
        • CSS is our king.

          div#content { width: 35em; margin-left: 2em; }

          When the user uses the font size up/down button, the layout automatically resizes to match it. (Example site [carlsensei.com].) Even better, a good PDA should know not to read .css files that are labeled media="screen", and only read the .css files that specify the media to include handhelds. Sadly, very few PDA browsers do this today, but I'm sure the situation will improve as more pages start using modern web design.
    • Using the "One Column" Layout "View" option of Pocket IE this displays fine. In fact it looks great on my PDA.

  • Uhm, okay... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think Slashdot mods need to be a little more selective about what they post. This is the cyber equivalent of a puff piece, like writing about the history of rubber spoons. I absolutely could not care less, and I want 30 seconds of my life back. I can't wait until next week's fascinating website, the history of MP3 players!!11111

  • And? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Vertdang ( 822271 )
    Wow, it has both pictures AND photos! (brought to you by the department of redundancy department) Man that's a big farking article.

  • Forgot One (Score:5, Funny)

    by ryants ( 310088 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:18PM (#12546287)
    Redneck Palmpilot [nlmotel.com].

  • fascinating... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by k4_pacific ( 736911 ) <k4_pacific@yah[ ]com ['oo.' in gap]> on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:19PM (#12546298) Homepage Journal
    Quite an interesting article. I never realized that Thomas Edison built the first PDA in 1906. It was called the Edison Automatic Electric Calendar. It weighed close to three tons and could remember up to five appointments at once.

    They've come a long ways since then...

  • Microsoft devices? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by David Horn ( 772985 ) <david&pocketgamer,org> on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:19PM (#12546303) Homepage
    You seem to have missed out the whole Microsoft / Palm battle, and the newest evolution of Pocket PCs, with VGA screens, 3D accelators and 624MHz processors.

    You can even get a Playstation emulator to run smoothly on the newest ones.

    • Re:Microsoft devices? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Aphrika ( 756248 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @04:14PM (#12546936)
      There is a complete lack of Microsoft stuff in the article which leaves what I'd consider quite a gaping hole in the history of PDAs.

      The reason is simply because when Microsoft entered the market, it was the first time a compatible desktop architecture and design had been ported across to a PDA. To a certain extent, they have also been instrumental in turning a PDA into a fully fledged, compatible and capable platform, adding Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, colour screens etc. Palm would certainly have rested on their laurels more if it wasn't for MS entering the market and we'd probably still be using black and white 2MB Palms.

      • Shhhh! This is Slashdot... Don't you know better than to say anything positive about Microsoft? *watches karma go down the crapper*

        :-P
      • you insensitive clod!

        Of course I got mine for free (Plam Zire), thrown in with a Dell Poweredge server.

        Perfectly suitable for me, and I didn't have to go out and risk a few hundred on something I didn't like and would end up giving to the nephew.

      • To start, the article deals with upto 1995. As far as I can tell, the "desktop architecture" came across with .NET. WinCE is a different architecture from DOS or NT, and handles some things differently.

        Though I agree, PocketPC devices always had the "1337" stuff first (nice, big color screens, fast CPUs, sound, etc) over the Palms, it took the lowering of prices and lengthening of battery lives on PPC machines to really light a fire under the PalmOS camp- and even then, Sony provided most of the competi


      • The reason is simply because when Microsoft entered the market, it was the first time a compatible desktop architecture and design had been ported across to a PDA. To a certain extent, they have also been instrumental in turning a PDA into a fully fledged, compatible and capable platform, adding Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, colour screens etc.

        The author was wise to focus on convergence of the cell phone and the PDA rather than religous OS issues or conjecture about what would have happened if someone did not do som
  • Did anyone else read the news as "Please slashdot my web site" ?

    Sadly, the pictures might not be big enough for that.

  • Last paragraph (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aardwolf64 ( 160070 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:22PM (#12546331) Homepage
    That's seriously annoying. The guy writes an article on PDAs, then dismisses the past 15-18 years with one paragraph. What about the introduction of color?

    Here is the history of the PDA. I've spent 940 words on calculators, 40 words on actual PDAs, and 20 words on the massive changes that have occurred in the past 15 years.
  • There are six words missing from this 10,000 word essay; "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

    It featured hypertext, multimedia content objects, a wiki-like browsing interface and of course collaborative document editing (which sounds bad but was mostly harmless).

    Sturdy, rugged, built to take all kinds of knocks, apparently easily recharged despite country (or planet, for that matter) and quite affordable. All pre-1980.

  • PC-6? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FlyByPC ( 841016 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:23PM (#12546347) Homepage
    The Tandy PC-6 would be IMHO a good addition. I had one in junior high in the mid-80s; it spoke BASIC and assembly. Not too impressive these days, but back then a pocket calculator -- with 16K(!) of memory, and which spoke BASIC was amazing. I even wrote a crude 3D version of "Hunt the Wumpus" for it.

    The On-Hand PC [pconhand.com] is also pretty cool. I bought one a while back. While it goes through CR2025 batteries like they're candy -- and two at a time -- the idea that you can program yourself a new watch when you get tired of the old one is very cool.
    • I still have my PC-6! I don't think it works any more though - I think the connector between the two halves separated.

      The PC-6 was actually made by someone else before it got the Tandy brand name. I think Sharp made it, but I'm really not sure.

      I believe it came standard with 8K, but there was an additional 8K module available for it. I also have the cassette adaptor to allow cassette tape backups.

      Now I want to go play the horse race game on it...I killed a lot of boring class time that way...
      • Yes -- the original was 8K, with the option to add the additional 8K memory module. I have two of them, the original which works but is very well-worn, and a newer one in near-mint condition. Faster than the Timex-Sinclair I learned to program on -- and far more reliable! (I'm still regretting learning BASIC as my first language!)

        I believe you're right that they were made by Sharp.
        • I was actually starting to write a database program for it that would use the Memo feature to store the albums I owned. It wasn't long before I realized that program + data >>> 16K. (Where >>> is "much greater than".) Still, it was really cool that you could write programs to interact with the memo pad - it was, as we say now, integrated!
  • I have one of those sharp PC-1211 or similar model devices sitting at home. Being programmable in Basic meant that I could mess with it during math class to do my matrix transforms for me...

    And simple graphics capabilities let me make games too.

    Fun little device.
  • What about the paper based "organizer." Or items an abbacus? Stop watches? Anything that is protable and and manages data, really. Also, did he mention the first uses of touchscreens? I dunno. Its kinda hard to read in that format. He needs some CSS formatting. I stopped reading.

  • Missing Option: Psion 5 Series (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:40PM (#12546525)
    To me, the Psion 5 series [bioeddie.co.uk] is the ultimate PDA. It has a full suite of Office and PIM applications, compact size, a usable keyboard, decent screen size, and stellar battery life (35 hrs on-time with off-the-shelf AAs). Detractors might point to the lack of hand writing recognition, color, and MP3 playing, but I have absolutely no use or interest in those features (apparently, I am in a very small minority).

    Currently, there is absolutely nothing on the market that is remotely as good as the 5 series -- everything these days sucks in battery-life or keyboard or both.
    • The 5 is just a bit heavy and largish though. The revo fixed all that, and both had EPOC32's great user interface (far better than windows mobile or in fact the symbian-based OSes from Ericsson and Nokia).

      Also, mine is broken.

      So I have a PDA with builtin GSM/GPRS phone, the XDA-II.. Quite nice, but would have been nicer had it been a psion..

      Too bad, Psion really could have made it work, in its time it had more software and developers than even Palm (mostly because the thing came with a scripting language
  • In a recent reactionary wave to the hassles of PDAs there is the Hipster PDA [43folders.com]

    The Hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgement Aid) is a fully extensible system for coordinating incoming and outgoing data for any aspect of your life and work. It scales brilliantly, degrades gracefully, supports optional categories and "beaming," and is configurable to an unlimited number of options. Best of all, the Hipster PDA fits into your hip pocket and costs practically nothing to purchase and maintain.

    Weather-resistant. Dr

  • Atari Portfolio (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rindeee ( 530084 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:46PM (#12546578)
    I had an Atari Portfolio back in 1990 (I think it was 1990) and I still like it better than any other I've had. Mind you, it's not that it worked better, or was more capable. It's more an issue of capability for it's day and the fact that it was made by Atari of all companies. It was just an amazing little device that I could use in place of my laptop at the time (a Dell 386/SX-16). I wish I still had it just for fun. What a neat little device.

    • Re:Atari Portfolio (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Also handy for getting cash out of ATM machines if you're about to run into a Terminator whose mission is to guard you.

  • Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:46PM (#12546581)
    This article belongs in Wikipedia.

    That is all.

  • this disgusts me... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 0110011001110101 ( 881374 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:50PM (#12546617) Journal
    FTFA - In his early 20s, Pitroda received the patent. "There was no contest at all. I got all the claims in one shot," he said. He shared the idea with colleagues at American Express and with Noyce, but neither pursued it. Lacking other investment resources, Pitroda put the invention aside. "I think it was too far ahead of its time. I didn't have the muscles to do it myself," he said. He moved back to India in 1982 and returned to Chicago in 1991, where he saw PDAs becoming commonplace. In court, he won royalty settlements from Casio, HP, Radio Shack, Sharp, and Texas Instruments.

    So not only did this guy give birth to the idea of PDAs.. but also to the idea of patenting something general and sweepingly broad, and then suing later when somebody who isn't too lazy implements his idea... wonderful!

  • Wikipedia Version (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:52PM (#12546634)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assi stant [wikipedia.org]
  • First off, this guy is a total fool for not giving the Newton more props.. He OBVIOUSLY never used one: "Regardless of how fancy the Newton's interface is, a digital handheld organizer is a digital handheld organizer, and Wizard models existed four years before the Newton (not to mention many PDAs dating back to at least 1976!)." Yet he had already admitted earlier it was Apple that even INVENTED the term PDA :P Not to mention, to call the Newton an "organizer" is like calling a Cray a "calculator" And
    • I'm sorry, but I owned a Newton and I don't agree. At the time the MP was released in 1993, there were many similar devices in that category. Yes, Apple did coin the phrase PDA, and I give them credit for it. But overall I wasn't a huge fan of the PIM apps and the handwriting recognition was abysmal until you loaded Palm software (before they made the Pilot)'s Graffiti on it. Palm made the Casio/Tandy Zoomer PDA apps, and I actually thought those were a lot more useful than the Newton's, though the Zoom
    • The Newton had a lot of potential, but like speech recognition, handwriting recognition is a long way from becoming truly useful. It will take some amazing AI for it to hit "the sweet spot".

      I had a Sharp Wizard from 1995-1998, a Clio mini-tablet PC running Windows CE from 2000-2002, and ever since then I've used a Treo. Next up is an XDA III running Windows CE since Palm is dropping syncing with OS X.

      I'll never use a PDA with handwriting recognition and no built in keyboard. They all suck.
    • Seems it's more an article about PIMs, not PDAs, maybe he got his acronyms confused.
  • Such as the AT&T "GO". There was a LOT of amazing stuff that came and went between '93 and '96. If you blinked, you missed it, but almost every one introduced some significant step in the evolution.

    And as others have stated, kind of glossed over the Palm/WinCE early days and eventual paths that lead us to now.

    I'd give it a "C+" and say "needs more work"

  • One notable absence... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Aphrika ( 756248 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:58PM (#12546720)
    The Microwriter Agenda [geoff.org.uk]. While the linked article incorrectly mentions it was the first PDA, it did have one very inetersting feature; built into the right hand side of the device was a 5-key microwriter input system which allowed for 'blind' input. This is a variant of a chorded keyboard [ericlindsay.com] - quite an interesting read.
    • I still have one lying around. Battery is dead as a door nail, but it still looks great!

      Used this for several years (late 80's, early 90's) loved the fact that the chord keyboard allowed me to type away without having to hunt and peck on the silly little keys.

      Shame about those rechargeable batteries though - sealed in the case. They would hold less and less charge until running on charger power was all you could do.

  • What, no mention of IntelliSync/sync software? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @03:59PM (#12546728)
    One thing that everyone forgot about is that in the early days of PDAs there wasn't a really good way to move information between your PIM (Personal Information Manager) and your PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).

    For those lucky enough, you could get your secretary to do it. For everyone else, well, the process involved a lot of typing. And PDAs weren't really made for data entry, as you can imagine.

    Enter IntelliSync, by IntelliLink. They were the first (I believe) data synchronization software independent of the manufacturer or OS. In fact, they were often rebranded by the manufacturer.

    They made it less painful to synchronize with your PDA. As a bonus, it was possible to move between handhelds by synchronizing to your data from one source to another.

    This, of course, was before the Palm Pilot, which probably had the best information synchronization feature of any PDA to date. Instead of being an add-on, it was "part of the package" and worked really well. That, coupled with the small form factor and massive (for the time) data capacity made the US Robotics Palm Pilot a must-have.

  • Comment from the author... (Score:5, Informative)

    by evanak ( 796723 ) on Monday May 16, 2005 @04:03PM (#12546800)
    Hey,

    Well, I appreciate all the feedback, kind and otherwise...

    I wish some people would READ it all before commenting. For example:
    - Per the article's headline, it only covers the really evolutionary years, from 75-95. So I didn't "miss" from 96-now as one person said here.
    - A few people said I should've include the Hitchhikers Guide. I did, read more carefully.
    - "You didn't include [x] PDA." That's true. The article only includes devices that truly pioneered some new step forward, that did something others hadn't done before.
    - "The Newton Rulz"... I'm not going to touch that one. Already wearing my anti-Reality Distortion Field vest.

    As for the (many!) of you who sent me kind and insightful personal replies -- thank you, I do appreciate it.
    • Per the Articles Title "THE EVOLUTION OF THE PDA"
      Per the Articles First sentance "he purpose of this document is to be a comprehensive timeline of the history of PDAs. Specifically, my intention is to clarify which companies premiered each of the primary front-end features that are considered standard in modern (circa 2005) devices,"

      And so, yes, you did in fact "miss" from 96 until the present date as you state intention to discuss the origin of features found in pdas up to the current year of 2005. As you
      • "Mentioning the title of a book in passing does not constitute including the Hitchhikers Guide in your article." Right, why don't we just include mention of every fantastical, fictional "PDA"-like device ever dreamt up by every science fiction writer ever? Then it could be a 25,000 word article instead. Get a life you clueless b0z0.
    • Thanks for a wonderful walk down memory lane! I still have my TRS PC4 and once in a while I'll plug a new battery into it and do some basic. Had the Atari, had the HP LX95 also. When it first came out I wanted to get a Newton but found it too $$$ so I cannot comment on it but to say, yes it was ahead of its time and could have been more except for the infighting going on at Apple at the time (does anyone remember?). Some of the replies I read, it seem to me that they didn't take the time to read the entire

  • One Word (Score:2, Funny)

    by GIL_Dude ( 850471 )
    Tricorder...
  • ...the "Tandy 100". Portable (but not pocket sized) and widely used as a mobile typewriter by news reporters in the mid 80s.
  • ...that a portable computer called the "Linus" ran MS-DOS!
  • Palm based devices suck. Microsoft Windows Mobile based devices suck. Yeah yeah yeah everyone loves their $500 millions-of-colors-video-camera-phone-wireless bricks. Sorry, but a low cost simple PDA with long battery life would kick ass. If Apple could put out a quality iPod Mini priced Newton that fits into my pocket I'd buy one in a second.
  • This guy forgot the #1 PDA of all times, The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, sure you have to be an editor to update the device, but this was one of the the premeir concepts of all time.
  • Cool article, but there's no mention of Go's PenPoint or the hardware it ran on (originally made by Go, then by Eo).

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