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Handhelds Hardware

"Visor" from the Creators of the Palm 94

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gimme-some-freakin-pictures dept.
Bearpaw writes "ZDNet reports that that Handspring -- founded by original Palmers Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky -- will release the first of their PalmOS-based devices on Tuesday. " They have some sketchy details (Same OS, faster hardware, optimized applications, prices) but not much real meat. I'm looking forward to more data.
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"Visor" from the Creators of the Palm More

"Visor" from the Creators of the Palm

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  • Warrenty turn-around? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The thing that killed Palm III for me was 3Com's changes to how warrenty is handled. The whole point to a PDA is to provide easy *continual* access to information regardless of where or when you need it. I would guess that for the majority of people the major investment in the PDA is not the initial cost but the amount of time spent scribling info into the PDA. Under USR, the return on the investment in time payed off since even if the PDA failed a refernished unit would be provided withen approx. 2 days. Under 3Com, the return on investment is dimished by the fact that a failed PDA results in an *EMPTY* box being sent to you and availablity of scribled information is limited back to viewing at a computer and scraps of printed paper for OVER A WEEK! I would like a review of warrenty turn-around times before I ever invest in another PDA. Is IBM's PDA replacement time as unacceptable as 3Com's? Will Handspring provide an option to get a replacement next-day-air? Bottom line is that 3Com's warrenty policy might be fine for a company that can keep additional Palms on-hand and have an account # with Airborn Express (the delivery services the 3Com DEMANDS that failed Palms be sent back via) so that it can be dropped in an Airborn Express drop box instead of payment center, but I'm just an individual and 3Com just doesn't seem interested in keeping me as a customer.

  • Silence is hype? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Um, I'm sorry, but this is simply insane. The idea that a company is "hyping" a product that they've steadfastly REFUSED TO TALK ABOUT is madness.

    I mean, really, is there no way to win with you people?

  • Why is this a bad thing??? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I dont't understand why all of you are beating up on a visor that none of you know anything about. If anything, more PDAs to choose from is a good thing. If the price is right, these will stop being a "Geek" toy. I gave a friend my old USR palm pilot and he claimed that he would never leave his day planer. He only caries the palm now.

    I'm betting these will be good little devices, and one of the bonuses is that they won't have a clumsy windows CE operating system, and they will have a sweet batery life because they are not in color. Color screens are never as crisp as a B/W with a good backlight.

    I can think of tons of applications that you could use for the expansion slot. Voice Recorders, modems/airport, business card scaners, printers, barcode readers, maybe even a GPS map system (never buy a city map again!).

    I'll buy one if the price is right. Maybe I'm adding too mych hype. I have high hopes for this little PDA.

    Loren

  • Fine, then don't buy whatever megachip Transmeta comes out with when they actually do produce something. The speculation is wild about their stuff, what with all of the patents that they filed for, but they haven't said anything, and refuse to say anything.
  • I bought a Palm III for $200, and though I LOVE it, and I use it every day, I still think it's horrendously overpriced.

    I'd actually really like to have a Palm V (I like the smaller form-factor), but $350 is just WAY too much money for what it does.

    Perhaps my next palmtop purchase will be the rumored Apple Palmtop, with the AirPort wireless network. THAT would be, Way Cool (TM).

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
  • I think that the modularity is NOT a good idea.
    I don't really want to have to carry (and possibly lose) a bunch of these plug-in modules to switch between several desired functions.

    I think that the #1 great thing here is price. 3Com finally has competition that's going to bring prices back down out of the ionosphere. (WinCE doesn't count).

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
  • IR port - I've never used it. I doubt I ever will.

    USB - I think would be similarly useless.
    Build in the AirPort wireless functionality (same as the iBook), and THEN we'll have some hot peice of Palm action.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
  • > gpdatebook --add --starttime 1100 --endtime 1300 --description "Description goes here"

    Come on. We're not that stupid :-) The people who would do the port actually run palms, and of course we know it would only make sense with some kind of GUI.

    In other words, you'd probably be using "HandGNOME". (And that's not "PalmGNOME" because "Palm" is a registered trademark and all that.)

    > Why must you insist on departing from an established OS (PalmOS) designed specifically for this device, with over a thousand applications written for it?

    Because Linux is an stablished OS, with over many thousands of applications, and those applications are free. Don't you get tired of shareware? Of "nag screens", and paying 20 dollars for silly apps? If I don't live in US (and I don't) I will have to pay some extra bucks just because it's an international transation.

    Sorry, I don't like non-free software. I don't think it's right to be unable to share, modify, etc, etc.

    Still, if you want to do a specific task, it's a lot more likely that there is a linux app to do that (free) than a PalmOS (TM) app - and if there is one, it will likely be shareware (ugh).

  • Perhaps they are targetting this model at people who only want to IR hotsync or for two-pilot households, where you only really need one cradle.

    Still, I'd have to agree that it seems odd.

  • I'd imagine they licensed it. IBM makes Palm-clones (I've heard rumors that they plan to actually innovate a bit soon, right now they are just clones). Symbol makes a PalmOS device with a built in barcode reader. Qualcomm makes a really slick PalmOS cellphone.

    3Com isn't Apple. They aren't going to sit by and let WinCE unseat them, so it benefits them to have PalmOS running on as many devices as they can.

  • That's what I meant by "clone." An identical copy.

    The pdQ (PalmOS cellphone) is here [qualcomm.com] if you want to see it. It's way overpriced but still cool as hell.

  • I'm about to buy a Palm IIIsomething, and now I see this. Should I wait for the Visor? Bear I mind I'm actually going to use this thing, and not just toy with it. Does the Visor have the same contact/scheduling management/etc. software that the Palms do? I want a Palm, but they are *damn* expensive - the new ones, anyways. Not the III.
  • I blame Handspring for giving the media a few vague buzzwords and allowing them to run with them unchecked. Their "silence"...

    Silence or "silence," which is it? Were they really allowing the media to run unchecked, as you say first, or were they not entirely silent, as you suggest immediately afterwards? I'm just wondering if I'm missing something here...

    ...only propagated the misinformation that was given out which was building expectations for a product that they knew they could not deliver.

    So? This kind of gossip happens with just about every upcoming hardware platform. What's so wrong about letting people speculate?

  • But you don't get the battery life and you get stuck with the CE UI
  • colour is a bit of a mixed bag. on the one hand, it enables you to watch mpegs. on the other, it opens up the temptation to clutter the user interface. mind you, i'm a fan of colour in an xterm!

    hamish
    • but the mp3 player has little penny-size disks that hold about 2 megs of data (bah) so if you ask me, at'l suck.
    right you are, about it sucking, if it really only has 2 megs... what kind of mp3s do they think we're listening to? apparently no mp3 I've got.

    Just downsample the MP3's to 56 or 32 Kbps. You'll get tape or at least FM-quality sound. How good do you think the sound circuitry would be anyway. A 32 Kbps clip would be 1/4 the size and you could fit several "normal" songs on one of those disks.

  • Er, the first Palms sold by USR didn't have backlights. That was the first major update, I think 9 months (?) or so after they were first introduced. Maybe even a year. I remember, I had a Model 1000 (128k memory). I don't think the comment was regarding 3Com's improvements in particular; just the functional improvements to the product line since introduction. And the backlight wasn't there at the start.
  • The cheaper, cradleless version is probably for those without computers, or for corporate customers who hand out the devices for their employees use in the field.

    Being USB, I can imagine that the hotsync process is a lot quicker than it was with serial ports, so I can imagine the situation where an employee just pops it in a cradle near the door for a couple of seconds when going in and out of the building.
  • they were talking about something like a HUD for a palm device. Heh.

    Anyway, sounds pretty good tho. $180 for the mid range model seems reasonable to me. I wouldn't mind picking one of them up. :)
  • NO kidding, $249/8megs on a Palm is pretty darn cool. I was looking at the Helio for my next palm-sized machine, but now there's no reason. I really like PalmOS and I'm already familiar with the development environment. I wasn't looking forward to aquainting myself with yet another proprietary OS(on the Helio).

  • gpdatebook --add --starttime 1100 --endtime 1300 --description "Description goes here"

    Not to mention the fact that there is no input method for ucLinux. I suppose you could leave it on its cradle and rlogin...
  • YOu can get a color windowsCE device for not much more thana top of the line Palm...

    $300 more, that's not much... I suppose... Oh, and did I mention the 8 hour battery life...
    Those who have never used/owned a handy little machine have no idea just how important battery life is. I used to own a Newton MP130, and as beautiful as the bright back light was, I'd have to put 4 new AA's in that thing every week and a half. That sucked. And, it weighed a lot. And, it was huge. And, it was expensive. The MP costed me about what a color CE handheld costs. Palm is the way to go. Hopefully they'll get smaller and smaller and smaller...
    What's important to consider is not the price/features ratio, it's the price/utility ratio. In that category, Palm wastes the competition (in my learned and world weary opinion).

  • Yeah, and is 3Com going to unceremoniously dump the Palm line in order to satisfy the ego of its iCEO? Is 3Com going to blunder its way to success by first licenscing, then rescinding it's licenses, leaving its "loyal users" dangling in the wind? Is 3Com going to modify its processors/motherboard so that ONLY 3Com approved upgrades and processors can be used in their machines? Is it?!?!
  • If you don't like shareware, you can write your own replacement programs and release them under the GPL, there's no law that says you can't (yet). I have software on my Palm that is GPL'ed.

    The source code to the OS is available to developers (for the most part, not all of it is available) to make your programs more stable.

    I just don't see the point of having a bloated desktop OS on a palmtop other than for the sheer intellectual exercise.

    The Free Software movement could never support the full time development of a hardware platform. The Software model is fine: it requires brains and something to write with. Hardware needs fabrication plants. You can't buy fabs with honorable intentions or unselfish motives.

  • Does OS/2 have USB support? You'd be wanting to pick up the optional serial port cradle, then. It won't even connect to NT straight out of the box. I have a feeling that's because of the rechargable LI battery, though. It probably draws power from the USB port.
  • I think a lot of people go that impression after all that anti-Palm FUD on the story about how they're suing the Davinci people. I was under the impression that they were open to licencsing deals, big time. They'll even let you see most of the OS source if you sign a contract on their web-site.

    Handspring was founded by Palm's founders with the intent of licencsing PalmOS and making other products with it.
  • Honestly, I don't find any aspect of the Visor revolutionary or ground breaking.

    Uh, you don't consider the Springboard module slot at least potentially revolutionary? (3Com thinks it is -- rumor has it that they're working on their own device to have this.) Or the fact that Handspring's high-end version is only a little pricier than 3Com's low-end version?

    Whaddya want, egg in your beer?

    Granted, it's not the color-display, less-than-$100US, built-in digital wireless dream device Hawkins&Dubinsky have speculated about, but who really thought that'd be their first release?

  • Palm isn't the only OS in town ya know ... there are many sub $100 PDAs on the market today that work as good or BETTER than Palms or Palm clones.

    Ha! Name one.

    You can also get a Palm III for as little as $164 online (2MB, IR, etc.) or a Palm Professional for as little as $132 (1MB) which makes Palm clone's price even less attractive.

    You're comparing apples (current Palm street-prices) with oranges (Visor suggested prices).

    Also, what value is proprietary modularization in an open world?

    An "open world"? In your dreams. If it works, there's value in it.

  • The Visors run PalmOS, so if a piece of software runs on a Palm, it will almost certainly run on a Visor.
  • 3Com licensed it to Handspring. That was already a done deal when H&D left 3Com.

    3Com has also licensed PalmOS to IBM (for the Workpad) and Qualcomm (for the pdQ Smartphone). Rumour has it that other lisencing deals are in the works. There was some noise that Apple has considered licensing PalmOS for it's own handheld device, but I dunno the current status of that.
  • In a PDA, a color display also enables your batteries to be sucked dry quicker. Not to mention your wallet.

    Someday, though ...
  • Casio PV-200, Royal DaVinci, TI Avigo (discontinued but I have one), Sharp SE-300. There's four that, in my opinion, are as good or better than a Palm in the same price range give or take $50. (notice the opinion part *grin*)

    *grin* Ok. Is your opinion based on anything? Based on my experience with my Palm and 2 of the 4 devices you mentioned, my opinion is that saying they're are "as good or better than a Palm" is absurd.

    (re: comparing prices:)

    And what should I compare them to since there has been ZERO details about availability or resellers for the Visor.

    Compare MSP with MSP, or don't compare at all, given that you admit that there's insufficient data.

  • On a PC the MP3s are stored on the hard drive. How many you can store is not related to memory at all.

    I think that was the point. Sarcasm, doncha know.

    As suggested elsewhere, a MP3 module for Visors will probably have its own storage capability.

  • Let's not forget it's harder to read in the B/W in some lighting.
  • ---Snip---
    WinCE makes me sick, not because it's Microsoft, not because it's Windows, and not because it isn't PalmOS. It's because it's a bloated, buggy, non-fault-tolerant OS that has no place in the embedded OS market. If it did it's job without as many crashes, I could reccomend it, but as it is right now I really can't.
    ---Snip---

    WinCE (pronounced wince at my job :) is a terrible OS. It requires much more horsepower than it should to get the job done. It's very buggy and prone to crashes. The Symbol Palm Terminals never crash in daily usage - you have to TRY to crash them (try deleting a hack while its active and tell me what happens). The WinCE scanner terminals are very buggy - i've seen them crash four times in a half hour!

    The 'best feature' of WinCE was that development time was supposed to be reduced because it uses the Win32 API. Unfortunately, every manufacturer uses different hardware, and programs for one WinCE device are not guaranteed to run on different model, let alone manufacturer. You get all of the overhead of windows, and none of the benefits.

    The main attraction of Palm OS is that the hardware has not changed much over the past few years. Palm OS 3.02 has some extra features, but I can easily run programs written for Palm OS 1.0 or 2.0 on my SPT1500. Granted, 3Com is stalling with upgrading the Palm's hardware, but it's not really neccesary to do so.

    For the record, I do think that the Palms are overpriced.

    ------------------------------------------------ ---------

    "We are but packets in the internet of life."
  • Hmm, there should be Slashdot HTML extensions:

    Text
    Text
    Text
    Text

    Nah.

    -AS
  • Not that tight, I'm pretty sure you can even download the source off the net if you sign an NDA.

    They also know that WinCE (in pain) is gaining momentum and they need to get other devices supporting their OS.

  • Aaah, but in my office, all but one person in my group has a Palm device, and we beam stuff to each other all the time. My wife has one, and we beam stuff to each other all the time. At conferences, people beam stuff to each other all the time. If you're in an environment with a high concentration of Palm devices, you use this feature. If you're not, you don't.
  • old out keyboard sounds neat, but, with all of these peripherals, especially the fold out keyboard, isn't this thing going to get bigger/bulkier.. perhaps easier to damage? I can imagine me cracking the keyboard, or something like that.


    nope, the keybord is built into the visor much like a WinCE device, and its pretty sturdy, dont worry ;-)


  • Okay, okay. That's what I get for always reading things with a literal mindset. You never really know what people are thinking when they type.

    Pete
    I can see through time - Lisa Simpson
  • True the first PPs (1k, 5k) didn't have backlights . But it was USR that implemented them in the second generation of Palms (Personal, Pro). I should know, I have a PPPro that says U.S. Robotics and not 3-Com.

    But back on topic, yep 3Com/USR hasn't done too much with the thing since it came out. Here's everything that I can think of:

    -backlight
    -more memory
    -IRDA port
    -different form factors (2)
    -improved screen

    Considering how long it's been around, that's really not alot of innovation. I welcom the Visor and the competition thatit will bring.

    Maybe I'll list it as *RARE* on eBay and replace it with a Visor.

    Pete
    I can see through time - Lisa Simpson
  • Ummm... don't mean to be critical here but I think you're a little off of you description of how a PC handles MP3s. On a PC the MP3s are stored on the hard drive. How many you can store is not related to memory at all (Playback is another story though, windows w/ only 32mb? Yuck!).

    I assume that you are thinking of the Rio type devices that only have 32mb of memory. But then again they're not running windows.

    Pete
    I can see through time - Lisa Simpson
  • Instead of the silly eBooks they are releasing now with a terribly short battery life and wacky array of publishing support, what I'd like to see is a removable paperback sized screen I could attack to a Palm.

    The Visor sounds perfect, just slide the book display over the Visor and you can read books with a nice crisp display (that carries its own power source!! What a great idea!). That way you keep the great form factor and battery life of a Palm, get to easily transfer books to it via a cradle, and still get a good display if you like.

    You could even have a range a range of different kinds of displays (some perhaps touch sensitive, helpgul Palm based UML diagrammer anyone?) that can be as nice (and as expensive) as you want and only attached when needed (like reading on a plane or reading disagrammed articles in a more technical work).

    Please someone, steal this idea! If you make a lot of money, just send me a display for free as a show of gratitude.
  • With current tech, color sucks batteries, hard. You have to have a backlight running the whole time it's on, and a broader-spectrum one than just the old indiglo-style.

    You don't notice it so much on a WinCE device - the overpowered processors in that court already drain your batteries out fast unless you have a bulky heavy beefy battery - but if the only other battery drain were a measly Dragonball 68328 or '328EZ (PalmOS's power), you'd really notice your battery life in the toilet.

    The reason the original palm was so good was Jeff Hawkins's ability to say an emphatic "no" to user wish-list checkboxes like this, and hold fast to the essentials - form factor, usability, battery life. Don't expect Handspring to embrace color until it's way more mature.
  • I was under the impression that 3Com kept tight control of the PalmOS. Did they license the PalmOS from 3Com, recreate it themselves, or am I just misinformed?
  • Nah, palms don't need colour. What they need is 150dpi, 256 greyscale displays.

    A seriously high quality lcd display would be really sweet.

    And it might even make up for having to carry around a car-battery to power the thing...

    dave
  • I've been saving up some money just to get a Palm Pilot. Now that the Visor's are coming out, and, less expensive than regular Palm's, I know where my money is going now.
  • I know another soon to be PDA which has had a module slot for years ... Game boy. You can attach a camera to your gameboy, a printer, add memory, and even play games ... all on a color screen!

    The only thing about the springboard module slot that would make it attractive would be the accessories available like an MP3 player. But given the existing price structure of the Visor, you'll be paying $100+ for that plug in module and how many MP3's can a 2MB unit hold ... not even one. So you'll have to buy the 8MB Visor Deluxe plus the 8MB MP3 module to give you an 8MB, B/W MP3 player with no stereo out for $349 ... why not drop $100 more and get a 16 to 32MB Casio E-100 with a color display and stereo output?
  • Palm isn't the only OS in town ya know ... there are many sub $100 PDAs on the market today that work as good or BETTER than Palms or Palm clones. You can also get a Palm III for as little as $164 online (2MB, IR, etc.) or a Palm Professional for as little as $132 (1MB) which makes Palm clone's price even less attractive.

    Also, what value is proprietary modularization in an open world? There is already a modular "standard" of sorts .. it's called Compact Flash cards or PCMCIA for larger form factors.
  • Ha! Name one.

    Casio PV-200, Royal DaVinci, TI Avigo (discontinued but I have one), Sharp SE-300. There's four that, in my opinion, are as good or better than a Palm in the same price range give or take $50. (notice the opinion part *grin*)

    You're comparing apples (current Palm street-prices) with oranges (Visor suggested prices).

    And what should I compare them to since there has been ZERO details about availability or resellers for the Visor. As far as we know, it'll be a direct sales only deal right from Handspring and those ARE the street prices.

    While I agree that their "street" price may be lower, I don't really have much more than what was given in the article.
  • I blame Handspring for giving the media a few vague buzzwords and allowing them to run with them unchecked. Their "silence" only propagated the misinformation that was given out which was building expectations for a product that they knew they could not deliver.

    Your point is taken that the price is ground-breaking for a Palm OS device but since it's the first non-phone unit to license the PalmOS ... the simple fact that it's a Palm clone could be considered "ground breaking" in itself. The price comparative to other PDAs on the market is not ground breaking at all when you consider the 4MB Helio, 2MB DaVinci, 2MB Casio PV-200, etc.
  • You fail to recognize the statements from the Handspring owners when they first left 3Com and formed ... they said things like they'd be making a sub $99 consumer PDA that would revolutionize the industry. Then they zipped up and let the press hype their product with completely incorrect information (color screen, smaller than Palm V, etc.) They fanned the flames and then let it burn ... and when it's done, we're left with a simple rock where a diamond should be.
  • but the mp3 player has little penny-size disks that hold about 2 megs of data (bah) so if you ask me, at'l suck.
    right you are, about it sucking, if it really only has 2 megs... what kind of mp3s do they think we're listening to? apparently no mp3 I've got.. (well, I have a few clips... which are ~500 KB, but that's all..)

    fold out keyboard sounds neat, but, with all of these peripherals, especially the fold out keyboard, isn't this thing going to get bigger/bulkier.. perhaps easier to damage? I can imagine me cracking the keyboard, or something like that.
  • Just downsample the MP3's to 56 or 32 Kbps. You'll get tape or at least FM-quality sound. How good do you think the sound circuitry would be anyway. A 32 Kbps clip would be 1/4 the size and you could fit several "normal" songs on one of those disks.
    Smart you are... I didn't think of that. Geez, I feel kinda dorky now. But still, several songs isn't much. Then again, I shouldn't be complaining, so nevermind.

    I'm also guessing that they'd eventually get those penny sized disks more compressed, allowing for larger storage volumes/more mp3s, etc... which would be worth waiting for. Heck, by the time I ever get around to considering buying a PDA, I'll get all kinds of cool stuff, for less $ (sounds pretty darned cool to me..)

  • Of course it's not as groundbreaking as the Palm - but its exciting to many of us who haven't yet found a reason to get into the PDA thing. A lot of people (like me!) haven't jumped on the Palm wagon because of price - and also because recent versions haven't shown clear goals for the product line; new features are over-integrated and minor improvements at best.

    Improving modularity is a quantum improvement, albeit not revolutionary.
  • I think it's next Tuesday. That's what they're saying at PDA Buzz.

    Here's that one [pdabuzz.com]

  • Um, I think they're talking about the *device* doing that work. If it's all done in hardware, the amount of memory it requires to run would be less. Kinda like when you add a 3D card... less processor time is devoted to that task.

    Or am I missing something?
  • Ahhh, I guess I didn't specify my intended application. At the price the unit is supposed to be selling at, it comes close to the cost of the uclinux chip they plan on selling. Plus you get a built in lcd display. I was thinking more of abusing the pda as an extremely thin client for climate/audio/appliances/email/phone/etc controls in a house. Embed one in the wall of each room of the house, or use one with a hyped ir system. I have been looking at larget 486 platforms for the task, but at this cost/size it could certainly work as a development platform/prototype.

    Either that or a flexible control platform for a robot.

  • I recall reading about a linux port to an 8 mb pilot. Considering the processor is the same it should work with this new device right?

    Would a variant of the pcmcia handler work for the springboard modules?

    I wonder if a click drive (or bigger) will be available as a springboard module.

    I think I might wanna get on of these.

  • Maybe they'll just include a cable instead of a cradle. It's less convenient but works just fine and is preferable for, "road warriors" who could just stuff it into their bags along with their laptop.
  • So far, the IBM's aren't really clones -- they're identical to the Palms, other than different coloring and labelling.

    PalmOS cellphone? nice.
  • Keep in mind that there is much _much_ more possible with Springboard than just mp3 players.

    Point of order: there are currently all sorts of expansions for the Palm using the memory slot and serial connector. These range from wireless modems to a VERY cool magnetic compass device (It's true, i've got one! It really works... even tho it doesn't do much more than what your $5 compass can do, it's really really cool :) )

    Visor is going in the right direction by adding something for expansion purposes _only_. That way you can use both something intended for Springboard, and also have something designed to work with whatever cradle connector Visor will have (which WILL happen, trust me - there will definitely be a market for having mutiple expansions on your Palm, we've been waiting for it for a long long long time :) )

    Imagine - a keyboard thru the connection port, a modem in the Springboard slot, some PalmOS software which already exists, and you got yerself a highly portable, reliable Internet terminal...
    ooohhhh..... *drools* vixie WANT! vixie WANT NOW!

    erm. 'scuse me :)



    "I don't believe that there is one, single, perfect spiritual way and, in realizing that, obviously you become a lot more open."
  • Well, I have done some playing around with PalmOS programming, but never actually completed anything (just a few "Hello World" Deluxe Editions :) )... I'm not that much of a coder. :)

    And in any case I've never programmed for an old 68k Mac, so I wouldn't know anyways :)



    "I don't believe that there is one, single, perfect spiritual way and, in realizing that, obviously you become a lot more open."
  • That Linux port is at http://www.uclinux.org/ [uclinux.org]. Looks like a neat little project, but IMHO has yet to deliver anything really seriously practical. But you really do have to admit, it's damned impressive...
    Arguably, it would probably run on the Visor, but one never really truly knows until one tries...

    As for a PCMCIA handler variant, well, I doubt anyone has a clue about that at the moment 'cause no details about Springboard have been released yet, so we don't know how "genetically similar" it is to PCMCIA.

    And a clik drive would be really cool :) But that's ultimately Iomega's call.

    Problem is, we still don't have much concrete information. Wait 'till Tuesday. :)



    "I don't believe that there is one, single, perfect spiritual way and, in realizing that, obviously you become a lot more open."
  • True, this is not revolutionary, but it does take a drastic step forward in the propogation of Palm based PDA's. This will be good for everyone using a Visor or the high-brow Palm top users, the user base will expand, and a market for more software for the platform will open up. Think of the Visor as a sort of Palm-Lite. If something like the "Newton-Lite" had come along it could have very well saved the platform.
    You could blame Handspring for inferring that the Visor was going to be revolutionary, but the bottom line is that the Visor will be good for the Palm community as a whole. It is a good product and it has a price which simply can't be beat. As a student I have always wanted a Palm PDA, and now I can afford the next best thing.
  • I've alwasy been put off of the Palm because of price. YOu can get a color windowsCE device for not much more thana top of the line Palm...

    ... but look at those prices initially estimated prices! I'm going to have to run out and buy the high end model (as soon as I see someone else buy one, and it works great).
  • I'm sure some people will say that this is nothing special, but I imagine it could be another step towards the ubiquity of PDAs. It provides features people want (like memory) at a substantially lower price. It'll be interesting to see how Palm responds, anyway. And undoubtedly good for the consumer in the long run.

    I want to see a full set of specs, but I have to admit I'm tempted to break down and go for the 8mb/$249 model.
  • Does anyone know when this will be available or if it sports an IR port?
  • When the two people who created the Palm left 3com to form Handspring, part of the deal was that they got to use the PalmOS in their new project. They had originally said they were going to make PDAs for kids and teenagers, cheap and easy to use. I guess that plan went out the window with the prices on these Visors. At least that's what I heard, take it for whatever it's worth.
  • I mean please, the author quoted "sources" 9 times in about that many paragraphs.

    I enjoy my press releases as much as the next guy, but lets not pretend that they are news and lets not give this Spooner character too much credit for rewording it.

    Can we have some real news now. Thank you Rob, for slashdot discussion forums and the real information they contain.

    -Carl C-M
  • I completely agree. However, to pick nits:
    the hype that Handspring propagated through their self imposed silence.
    I invite everyone to notice the hype I am generating about my ground-breaking new secret project through my self-imposed silence. I have said nothing about it for years. If I keep quiet for a few more the world will beat a path to my door. I guess I just can't feel that Visor has generated any hype - Amiga, now that's hype.
  • WinCE makes me sick, not because it's Microsoft, not because it's Windows, and not because it isn't PalmOS. It's because it's a bloated, buggy, non-fault-tolerant OS that has no place in the embedded OS market.

    Um, PalmOS isn't really fault tolerant either. There's no MMU, so there's only minimal memory protection. It's also cooperative (as opposed to preemptive), so if my app gets stuck in a loop nothing else has a chance to run.

    The only similarity between Palm and Mac is their popularity - fans of the Palm, much like the Mac, tend to stick to their machines because those machines work _beautifully_, _for them_.

    You've never programmed for PalmOS, have you? It's very similar to the old 68k Macs. They're running the same processor, neither has a proper loader-linker, the 'file' format for apps is similar, the memory model is very similar, and I think that the Macs used the same trap interface for APIs that PalmOS uses.

    /peter
  • This sounds great. 3com has been treading water with their current palm line. The only real functional improvements since the first palm pilot have been the back light and the IR port.

    With the springboard slot and a usb options they're can fix one of the palms biggest shortcomings, it's lack of hardware expandability.

    I'm a little concerned about the lack of a cradle on the low end model. Easy hotsync was one of the great things about the orignal palm.
  • For all you Palm lovers out there, Symbol Technologies [symbol.com] has three variants on the Palm series.

    The SPT1500 is a OEM Palm III with an integrated barcode laser scanner. It is used for warehouse management, shipping, and receiving applications. It looks like a standard Palm III with an added inch at the top for the scan engine. The expansion port holds the scanner card.

    The SPT1 700 and SPT1740 [symbol.com] are brand new ruggedized Palms that are designed to be used in an industrial environment. They are rated to survive a 4-foot drop onto solid concrete.

    And yes, you can use standard function calls to enable and use the scanner. Someone wrote code that stops the scan mirror from oscillating and turns the SPT1500 into a ad-hoc laser pointer.
    ---------------------------------------- -----------------

    "We are but packets in the internet of life."
  • People keep talking about a 2mb mp3 player.

    That's silly(though I grant people and companies have done silly things before.)

    Look at an 'average' PC. It's system with, say, 32mb of memory. It plays mp3s. You can only store like half an hours worth of music on a PC then, at 128kbps quality. And that's not even taking into account that Windows will take up a good hefty chunk of operating space. Yet this is the device that mp3s were born for/from!

    The secret? Removeable/fixed drives!

    Why would not the Visor's mp3 cartridge either use something like IBM's 340mb MicroDrive(compactflash form factor I believe) or Iomega's 40mb Clik disk(for an unlimited amount of storage and swapping)

    I mean granted that Winamp takes like 4mb of memory, I'm sure a much slimmed down mp3 player with a DSP on the cartridge could easily live on a 2mb system.


    -AS
  • Come on, how revolutionary can you get? I guess I'd eat that statement, however, when someone *does* release something revolutionary.

    Some noticable improvements:
    USB instead of serial for faster up/down loads and quite possibly lots of future expansion capabilities (USB printers, cameras, speakers, etc.
    Springboard expansion slot, a lot like the GameBoy's cartridge in a way. Imagine hooking up a tiny camera, a microdrive, flash memory, a flashlight, a barcode scanner, medical sensors, ethernet port, whatever, on there!

    I don't know about battery life or screen size/resolution/clarity.

    It would be nice if all of these were improved, however!

    -AS
  • I'd imagine the mp3 module would have a DSP, or an mp3 accelerator on board, while mainly being a storage device-think 340mb IBM MicroDrive.

    Then the Visor would be merely a controller and glue logic. Oh, and I'd imagine the add on would have a speaker/headphone jack if the Visor doesn't already.

    I mean, how silly/nonsensical is it for the average PC with only 32mb of memory to play MP3s? You can only store 20 minutes worth at 128kbps, and we're not even taking into account them memory that Windows uses, right?

    -AS
  • k, so my friend's dad does some work for these guys (hehe, it wouldnt be smart of me to say what he does, now would it? ;-) and he got a fully functional prototype to play around with for awhile. anyways, i got to see it and mess around with it, and it is sweet.
    first off, it has a fold out keybord, so no more grafitti (yay) and the switchbord peripheral thing has already had such things made for it as a pager, cell phone, mp3 player (as said by other people), etc.
    dont ask me how the pager or cell phone work (i was more interested in fiddling w/ the mp3 player), but the mp3 player has little penny-size disks that hold about 2 megs of data (bah) so if you ask me, at'l suck.
    anyways, i should shutup now before the mangets mad ^_^


  • Why in the world would you want to run Linux on an organizer? Let's say I want to add an appointment on a standard Palm. Here's the procedure I'd use:
    Press the "Datebook" button. Tap on 11:00 AM, tap "end time," tap 1:00 PM, press OK. Write in the description of the appointment.
    By comparison, here's the command line for gpdatebook (GNU Palm Datebook program) to do that same thing:
    gpdatebook --add --starttime 1100 --endtime 1300 --description "Description goes here"
    Sure, that command line looks pretty tiny for all the 70wpm typists out there, but can you imagine writing all that in with Graffiti?

    People say that Windows is not meant for the handheld market, but in my opinion Linux certainly isn't, either. Why must you insist on departing from an established OS (PalmOS) designed specifically for this device, with over a thousand applications written for it? PalmOS is tight, tiny, stable, and you can write code for it with freely available tools like gcc. I give credit to Linux for its server abilities, but it's not going to be running my handheld.
  • Ok, I've been bagging on the Visor all morning (ZDNet, PDABuzz.com, etc.) so I'll just say that I'll be a bit let down *IF* the Visor ends up being what ZD says it will be. Handspring released statements like "groundbreaking PDA" and "revolutionary design" then said nothing and let the rumor and speculation fly. Now they give us a Palm clone.

    Honestly, I don't find any aspect of the Visor revolutionary or ground breaking.

    I just hope I'm missing something BIG here (very possible) and the Visor does live up (to an extent) to the hype that Handspring propagated through their self imposed silence.

    (Damn I'm ranting a lot today.)

    More useless PDA babble @ PDA Buzz [pdabuzz.com]
  • ...the hype that Handspring propagated through their self imposed silence.

    "Hype" isn't silence... The price points seem "ground-breaking" for Palm OS devices, and although the functionality doesn't seem spectacular, it does sound like it's ahead of the regular Palms.

    Maintaining silence is not hyping their product; we'd be ripping them even worse if they had been pushing the product constantly. Let's not get into a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
  • For news and information on Handspring's Visor, check out http://www.visorcentral.com , or if the DNS has not updated http://207.192.92.38/visor/
  • ...make it go faster, add rechargeable batteries, bump it up to 8Meg Ram, improve the method by which I add modules, offer modules for pager, MP3, voice recorder....and deliver it in a price that's almost half the cost of 3Com's top of the line model.

    But it doesn't do color man! It sucks! :)!

  • Re:Palm=Mac (Score:3)

    by vixiejvc ( 82243 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @05:35AM (#1695364) Homepage
    That depends on whether your PDA is a accessory to your computer (Palm) or a replacement for your computer (WinCE, and to a lesser extent, uCLinux).

    WinCE makes me sick, not because it's Microsoft, not because it's Windows, and not because it isn't PalmOS. It's because it's a bloated, buggy, non-fault-tolerant OS that has no place in the embedded OS market. If it did it's job without as many crashes, I could reccomend it, but as it is right now I really can't.

    ('Course, if you're very used to Windows, you might still want to consider WinCE. I'm not stopping or flaming you for doing so, I just think you ought to demand better from your PDA.)

    Embedded OSes are just that - embedded. You have to be able to _rely_ on them, all the time, 24/7, or else you just purchased a very pretty paperweight. And for the most part you can't change that OS either. (uCLinux kinda shows otherwise, but it's still alpha hackerware)

    The only similarity between Palm and Mac is their popularity - fans of the Palm, much like the Mac, tend to stick to their machines because those machines work _beautifully_, _for them_. It doesn't necessicarily mean that those are The Way That All Must Follow, just that those are The Way That That One Individual (And Others Like Him/Her) Probably Should Follow 'Cause It Works.

    (Ya know, that seems to be a problem with lots of folks - just because it works for you does not mean it works for everyone, consequently others should not 1) be flamed, 2) be forced into another way of working, or 3) be ignored. )

    I'm sticking with PalmOS, to tell ya the truth, 'cause it works for me :)



    "I don't believe that there is one, single, perfect spiritual way and, in realizing that, obviously you become a lot more open."

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