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| History of PDA teardowns |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-08-15 11:20:14 |
| You'll want to see this. "A teardown chronological history of PDA Organisers spanning 17 years: 1986 Psion II Organiser, 1996 Palm Pilot 5000, 2003 HP iPAQ 5550." Very thorough teardowns of the hardware, detailing all the chips and other on-board parts. Hardware porn, basically. Great work by David L. Jones. |
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| Uhh, Not now |
| By Drunkula on 2012-08-15 12:34:41 |
| Just got to work. Boss man might not like me starting the day off with a 53 minute YouTube video! |
 - Score: 1 |
| Geek hero |
| By henderson101 on 2012-08-15 14:29:48 |
| Glad to see that crazy Aussie bloke getting some love here. Been watching his vids since one of his tear downs (of a Yamaha keyboard) was featured on Hackaday about 4 or 5 months ago. Whilst I don't religiously watch them all, tear down tuesday is really nice!! He's done some pretty good ones recently (including a tear down of a Nexus 7..) |
| - Score: 2 |
| Great devices (except the iPAQ) |
| By flypig on 2012-08-15 19:28:29 |
|
I know from experience that Psion made just the most fantastic devices. Similarly the prospect of having an XScale in a PDA was thrilling at the time with the iPAQ (unfortunately let down by Win CE). However, although I never owned one, out of the three I can't help feeling most drawn to the Palm. Simple and with just a giant screen (sort of!). It deserved to evolve into today's smartphones, and I still find it astonishing it didn't. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Great devices (except the iPAQ) |
| By Morgan on 2012-08-15 20:49:20 |
|
Well I certainly miss my trusty old Palm Treo 650, I still consider it the best smartphone I've ever owned. It even beats my current two, the HTC Arrive WP7 phone and the Samsung Nexus S with ICS. I'd give up both of these phones and a little cash for a modern Treo with WiMAX and a high resolution screen. And I don't mean a WebOS phone, that's not the same thing at all! I mean a thin, fast Treo with an updated Garnet OS. Of course I know that will never happen. Back on topic, the video certainly brings back good memories. I was already familiar with the innards of the USR Palm unit as I've owned one and had to fix a broken solder joint in it many years ago. I think it's amazing to see how much has changed, and yet how much remains the same, in 20 years of PDA tech. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Great devices (except the iPAQ) |
| By flypig on 2012-08-15 21:08:52 |
|
Yeah; the video clearly shows evolution across the devices - it's fascinating to see how the boards get more tightly packed - but the fundamentals all look similar. Not that I'd even know a resistor from a capacitor. Every device I ever opened up ended up with some crucial functionality mysteriously missing afterwards. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Great devices (except the iPAQ) |
| By henderson101 on 2012-08-15 21:15:45 |
| I owned the Palmpilot pro. It was the next generation version of the Palm 5000 (the regular Palm pilot was equivalent to the Pilot 1000.) Loved it at the time. I still have it in a drawer and my eldest used it for a while when she was around 8. Good intro to mobile computing. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Great devices (except the iPAQ) |
| By Thom_Holwerda on 2012-08-15 21:38:50 |
|
Every now and then, I power on any of my Palm devices (I have loads). PalmOS really was amazing in that it was both total shit, and yet still managed to work and appear elegant. Loved it. Edited 2012-08-15 21:39 UTC |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Great devices (except the iPAQ) |
| By Morgan on 2012-08-15 21:57:19 |
|
I forgot to mention, you could install a GNU/Linux-based OS called Familiar Linux on some revisions of the iPAQ line. It was never 100% hardware supported on all models, but it made for some fun times and much better functionality than WinCE/PocketPC. Edited 2012-08-15 21:59 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| Here's an idea! |
| By drstorm on 2012-08-15 23:08:57 |
| Perhaps HP should sue Apple 'cause iPad kinda sounds like iPAQ. You know, customers might get confused is all. Apple is really ruining HP's brand here. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[2]: Great devices (except the iPAQ) |
| By flypig on 2012-08-16 00:01:21 |
|
> you could install a GNU/Linux-based OS called Familiar Linux on some revisions of the iPAQ line. I really wish I'd done that at the time! WinCE had decent developer tools, but other than that I just could never get on with it. |
| - Score: 1 |
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