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Handhelds Hardware

Overclock Your Palm 35

curveclimber writes " Taking memos a little too slow on your Palm? Overclock that puppy with Afterburner, a HackMaster hack. It can push that DragonBall EZ MC68EZ328 up to 29MHz (YMMV). Read a review, or the Afterburner FAQ. Remember overclocking's fun, until you smell smoke. For the the foolhardy, download away. "
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Overclock Your Palm

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  • Can Afterburner underclock too?

    Eco Hack [pstec.de] is a util that underclocks your Pilot to save batteries. However, it's shareware and I'd rather not pay for more software (just my opinion).

    Alex Bischoff
    ---

  • Now all we need is a distributed.net port to this thing that transfers blocks when you sync....

    That was actually considered ;). However, the Pilot has such intense power conservation (as one person put it "Even when it's on, it's off") that the client would kill your battery life :-/.

    Alex Bischoff
    ---

  • Don't forget:

    6) Gives you an excuse to drown the beeping bastard in mineral oil [slashdot.org]!

  • No way are those chicklet packets real keyboards. A real keyboard is something that my hands can fully position and type at. My brain/hands automatically switch into hunt-n-peck mode when the keyboard is too small, which is just as slow, if not slower than graffiti.
  • I do NOT recommend overclocking the pilots.. I tried EcoHack at 23Mhz on my PalmV, and I noticed that the graphics in Lemons and Dragonbane was fsck'd up! I went down to 16mhz and after maybe 5-10 minutes, it became normal again.

    Don't!
  • First, this isn't new -- there have been several utilities allowing you to change the clock speed of your Palm[Pilot].

    But more importantly, clocking up isn't necessarily the way you want to go. Reducing the speed is more useful -- saves battery life.

    --

  • If taking memos is too slow, perhaps you need to overclock your hand, or perhaps get something with a real keyboard [calcaria.net].
  • For me, VIM is the killer app for a palmtop. That's why I want an 80 character display, a keyboard and a long battery life (ie monochrome).

    For others it could be uEmacs. Combined with mutt, lynx and a miniature SMTP server that can talk over infrared or mobile phone it would be an ideal mobile communication centre for a geek.

    Some crazy guys are porting vi to EPOC actually, so perhaps Linux isn't necessary.

  • Is the speed presented here really needed? I mean, yah, it will make your palm more speedy, and able to do tasks a bit quicker, but your not compiling movies or anything. :) If someone out there who has a palm who has overclocked it, tell me if they can tell and if it's needed. :)
  • From the screenshot in the [hardware-one.com]review [hardware-one.com] it looks like it can go down to 13MHz (or slower?).

    Regards, Ralph.

  • Woah, do my eyes deceive me? Did I just see a blatant reference to the Knights of the Dinner Table on Slashdot? For all those not in the know, or those non-roleplaying geeks, Knights of the Dinner Table is a great comic in Dragon magazine.

    Speaking of, how many Slashdotters out there RPG? Maybe an idea for a new poll?

    Grue
  • Eco Hack can also overclock up to 23MHz (in fact, it has settings for 19, 21, and 23, in addition to underclocking and normal mode).
  • I think the original clock rate (16 MHz?) was set more to extend battery life then to protect silicone. Even the early units can be overclocked up to about 130% (I believe).

    Unlike PC overclocking, I think battery life is the main constraint here, not heat dissipation. Your cpu will last forever, but you will be replacing batteries so often you will think you have a wince device :).

    The new flavor of dragonball cpu used in the IIIx, V, and VII models is actually designed for much higher rates, they just clocked it lower to stay compatible with existing software, extend battery life, and because the existing speed is plenty fast as it is. It's not like you are going to run quake on the thing (although there are a couple of first person games out there for it).

    I know that the batteries on my new IIIx last MUCH longer (over a month) then they did on my palm professional with the 2MB IR upgrade. The darn thing just keeps on running...

    These pilots are the single best computer design I have ever used, the thing just dissapears into your life as an indespensible tool.
  • Why, oh why, do we want linux on a Palmtop organizer? This I do not know.

    Why did people port Linux to the Nintendo 64? It's a challenge!

    Also, Linux is a relatively easy OS to port (compared to MacOS or anything M$ puts out). In porting Linux to an architecture, you learn a great deal about that arch, and become more adept at fixing problems, even in other OSes.

    Oh, and it's fun :-)
  • Now all we need is a distributed.net port to this thing that transfers blocks when you sync....
    []
  • Actually, I use EcoHack since quite a while, and I'm really happy with it, since it does conserve batteries and I'm mostly read (newspapers, magazines and the like) on my Pilot 5000. But I can feel the character recognition accuracy go way down when I use it, so for entering anything resembling a bigger text, I switch it off, or put it in overclock mode.

  • by kieran ( 20691 ) on Friday June 11, 1999 @04:56AM (#1855778)
    Was I the only person to double-take at the title?

    *innocent whistle*
  • Afterburner is strictly freeware - so it won't cost you a penny to try anyway (or a krone, dollar or currency unit of your choice).

    Ermmm .. unless your Pilot starts to smoke that is :-)

  • Anyone would think you guys had never done anything just because you could. I've been playing with this all morning, and although admittedly it's sucked my batteries dry (they were already low) the search speed on "Find" is way impressive.

    The FAQ says that the next version will be able to set the clock rate individually by application. That would be really useful - a nice comporomise between speed and battery life. Too bad "Find" isn't an app.
  • The Palm VII as currently shipping does not have a dragonball EZ, just a plain dragonball
  • My grandmother told me I would go blind if I didn't stop overclocking my palm. :)
  • What a great idea (at least to a guy who stands in front of the microwave shouting, "Hurry up, dammit!").

    "I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time." -- Steven Wright
  • Have you ever used a GoType [gotype.com] keyboard? It's great... not a "chicklet packet" at all. The keys are comparable to many laptops, although they're shorter from front to back. I've had a GoType since February, and it works very well for taking notes and such.

    I've been touch-typing for a while, and I can certainly touch-type much more quickly than Graffiti. Even better, I can leave the keyboard behind, take just the organizer in my pocket, and still have a fully functional PDA. No laptop can disassemble and still be portable AND functional.
  • by Junta ( 36770 )
    Sorry for being ingnorant, but what is the normal clock for one of em?
  • Sorry, read the article and saw 16MHz, that is one heck of a proportional increase..
  • Some you guys have way, way too much time on your hands (sic).
  • Does that mean its not safe to overclock the Palm 3?? I ran some hacks on it and I wasn't entirely happy but whatever...
  • by RimRod ( 57834 ) on Friday June 11, 1999 @04:34AM (#1855789)
    1) You'll be put on the promotion fast track once your employers realize that you're taking memos 10% faster than everyone else.

    2) You'll have an extra 2 seconds a day to pursue leisure activities, such as overclocking your coffeemaker.

    3) Since your PalmPilot will be overheated, you can stick it down your pants to prevent shrinkage before dates.

    4) Or, you can put a cooling fan on it and impress your friends by making your Palm Pilot more bulky then your desktop computer.

    5) It's a sure babe magnet.
  • You dummox. You should have read the EcoHack FAQ.
    It specifically says that EcoHack was not designed for the newer dragonball processor in the IIIx and V. And the author specifically said _NOT_ to use EcoHack on those units. Your fault, not the programs.

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