|
|
Home | Links |
|
All about Palmtop Computers (palm top computers) including where to by Palmtops and some history about Palmtop computers.Palmtop ComputersPalmtops are often described as: Palm-sized computer that usually does not have a keyboard but is operated by using a stylus on a touch-sensitive screen. Although several companies launched palmtops and personal digital assistants, the first successful model was Palm Computing's Palm Pilot. (Palm was taken over by modem manufacturer US Robotics, which in turn was taken over by networking company 3Com.) In 1998, Casio, Philips, and other companies launched Palm-like palmtops running Microsoft's Windows CE operating system (renamed Pocket PC in 2000). A palmtop, or handheld, computer can also be described as any small, portable device that provides computing, information storage and retrieval, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA). Many palmtop computers on the market are tablet designs, operated with a stylus and touch screen rather than a keyboard. PsionPsion PLC is a consumer hardware company which developed the Psion Organiser as well as a whole range of more advanced, clamshell-design Personal Digital Assistants. Psion today comprises one remaining operating division, the Canadian Psion Teklogix, having closed or disposed of all its previous operations. Although its actual operations are based in Canada, Psion itself is a British company. Psion was established in 1980 as a software house with a close relationship with Sinclair Research. The company developed games and other software for the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum home computers, released under the Sinclair brand. Its name means "Potter Scientific Investments." after the company's founder David Potter. The acronym PSI was already in use elsewhere in the world so ON was added to make the name PSION unique. David Potter remained and managing director until 1999 and currently is still chairman of the company. Psion's games for the ZX Spectrum included Chess, Chequered Flag, Flight Simulator and the Horace series. In early 1983, Sinclair approached Psion regarding the development of a suite of office applications for the forthcoming Sinclair QL personal computer. Psion were already working on a project in this area and the QL was launched in 1984, bundled with Quill, Archive, Abacus and Easel; respectively a word processor, database, spreadsheet and business graphics application. These were later ported to MS-DOS, collectively called PC-Four, or Xchange in an enhanced version. 1984 also marked Psion's first foray into hardware; the Psion Organiser, the world's first handheld computer, in appearance resembling early games machines. In 1986 the vastly improved Psion Organiser II was released, whose success led the company into a decade long period of "Psion" Computer and operating system development. It included a simple-to-use database programming language, OPL, which sparked a large independent software market. In 1987 Psion began development of its "SIBO" ("SIxteen Bit Organiser") family of devices and its own new multitasking operating system called EPOC to run its PDA products. It is often rumoured that EPOC stands for "Electronic Piece Of Cheese" however Colly Myers, (who served as CEO of Symbian until 2005), said in an interview that it stood for 'epoch' and nothing more. This development effort produced the Psion Series 3 (1993-1998) and the Psion MC-series laptops. A second effort, dubbed Project Protea, produced the Series 5 Psion for sale in 1997, a completely new product from the 32-bit hardware upwards through the OS, UI, and applications. It is still remembered for its high quality, especially its keyboard which despite its size allowed for touch-typing. But the entirely new feel of the product, and the removal of certain familiar quirks, alienated the loyal Series 3 userbase - who tended to stick with their robust PDAs rather than upgrade. Psion was also challenged by the arrival of cheaper devices running Microsoft's Windows CE and the lower functionality approach of the Palm Pilot. In 1989 Psion purchased Dacom, and rebranded the new business "Psion Dacom" (later rebranded to "Psion Connect"). This business focused on modems and connectivity products, in particular the Gold Card range of PC cards for laptops. The 32-bit EPOC developed by Project Protea resulted in the eventual formation of Symbian Ltd. in June 1998 in conjunction with Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola. The OS was renamed the Symbian Operating System and was envisioned as the base for a new range of smartphones. Psion gave 130 key staff to the new company and retained a 31% shareholding in the spun-out business. The Symbian operating system as of 2007 powers around 125 million mobile phones such as the Sony Ericsson P900 series. The development of new and updated products by Psion slowed after the Symbian spin-off. The upgraded Series 5 took two years to arrive and it was not until 2001 that the colour Series 5[citation needed] was ready. Other products failed or had limited success - a Psion Siemens' GSM device, a Series 5 based STB, the Wavefinder DAB radio, an attempt to add Dragon's speech recognition software to a PDA, Ericsson cancelled a Series 5MX derived smartphone project in 2001. Psion had sold its sole manufacturing plant in 1999 and started to withdraw from its PDA markets in late 2001, [1] shedding 250 of 1,200 staff and writing-off £40 million. The PDA, which was once a niche market, had become a global horizontal marketplace where it was difficult for Psion to compete. The final blow for Psion's Organiser and PDA business came in January 2001 when Motorola pulled out of a joint project with Psion, Samsung, and Parthus, to create "Odin", an ARM-based PDA-phone. In 2000 Psion acquired Teklogix (Canada) for £240 million, and merged its business-to-business division, Psion Enterprise, with the newly acquired company. Teklogix was re-branded PsionTeklogix. This division now forms the core of Psion Plc's business. In 2002 Psion created a new division called Psion Software. This business developed push email solutions for Symbian smartphones, Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. This business was sold to Visto (USA) in 2003. In 2004, Psion announced its intention to dispose of the company's remaining Symbian shareholding to Nokia, as they no longer regarded it as a core part of their strategy. Although opposed by many shareholders, the large shareholding of the founder, David Potter, ensured the vote was carried. Having closed or disposed of all its previous operations, Psion today comprises one operating division, Psion Teklogix. Psion and LinuxPsion PLC had a lengthy, but distant, interest in Linux as an operating system on its electronic devices. In 1998, it supported the Linux7K project that had been initiated by Ed Bailey at Red Hat, which was to port Linux to its Series 5 personal computer.[2][3][4] The project was named after the Cirrus Logic PS-7110 chip of the Series 5. Although this project was one of the earliest attempts to port Linux to a handheld computer,[5] it did not come to fruition for Psion. The project soon transitioned to an informal open source project at Calcaria.net that kept the name Linux7K. After the project transitioned again to sourceforge.net, the project's name was changed to a more general name "PsiLinux", and more recently to "OpenPsion". The project has developed Linux kernels and filesystems for the Revo, Series 5 and 5MX, and Series 7 and netBook. In 2003-2004, Psion and its founder David Potter expressed interest in Linux as the operating system for its devices as it divested from Symbian.[6][7][8] However, the only result of that interest was Linux as the operating system on a limited number of custom NetBook Pro's designed for a hospital setting.[9] Psion PDAs * Psion Netbook All these PDAs except the Psion netpad have a small keyboard, which in all but the Organiser's case is of the standard QWERTY layout, or regional variation thereof. Psion Laptops * Psion MC 200 PalmPalm handhelds are Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) which run the Palm OS. Palm devices have evolved from handhelds to smartphones which run both Palm OS and Windows Mobile This page describes the range of Palm devices, from the first generation of Palm machines known as the Pilot through to the latest models currently produced by Palm, Inc including their new Palm Centro line of consumer smartphones. History of PalmPilot was the name of the first generation of personal digital assistants manufactured by Palm Computing in 1996 (then a division of U.S. Robotics). The first two generations of PDAs from Palm were referred to as "PalmPilots". Due to a trademark infringement lawsuit brought by the Pilot Pen Corporation, since 1998 [1] handheld devices from Palm have been known as Palm Connected Organizers or more commonly as "Palms". "PalmPilot" has entered the vernacular as a synonym for PDAs, regardless of the brand. The inventors of the Pilot were Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, who founded Palm Computing. The original purpose of this company was to create handwriting recognition software for other devices, named Graffiti, but their research convinced them they could create better hardware as well. Before starting development of the Pilot, Hawkins is said to have carried a block of wood, the size of the potential pilot, in his pocket for a week. Palm was widely perceived to have benefited from the notable if ill-fated earlier attempts to create a popular handheld computing platform by Go Corporation and Apple Computer. The first Palms, the Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000, had no infrared port, backlight, or flash memory, but did have a serial communications port. Their RAM size was 128 kB and 512 kB respectively, and they used version 1 of Palm OS. Later, it became possible to upgrade the Pilot 1000 or 5000's internals to up to 1 MB of internal RAM. This was done with the purchase of an upgrade module sold by Palm, and the replacement of some internal hardware components. Originally, it was conceived that all Palm PDAs were to be hardware-upgradeable to an extent, but ultimately, this capability gave way to external memory slots and firmware-upgradeable flash memory after the Palm III series. The next couple of Palms, called PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional, had a backlight, but still no infrared port or flash memory. Their RAM size was 512 kB and 1024 kB respectively. They used the more advanced version 2 of the Palm OS. Palm III, and all the following Palms, did not have the word "Pilot" in their name due to legal disputes. (Pilot was, and still is, a registered trademark for pens.) Palm III had an IR port, backlight, and flash memory. The latter allowed to upgrade Palm OS, or, with some external applications, to store programs or data in flash memory. It ran on two standard AAA batteries. It was able to retain enough energy for 10-15 minutes to prevent data erasure during battery replacement. It had 2 Megabytes of memory, large at the time, and used Palm OS 3. (Palm also produced an upgrade card for the Pilot series, which made them functionally equivalent to a Palm III.) Meanwhile, with Palm Computing now a subsidiary of 3Com, the founders felt they had insufficient control over the development of the Palm product. As a result, they left 3Com and founded Handspring in June 1998. When they left Palm, Hawkins secured a license for the Palm OS for Handspring, and the company became the first Palm OS licensee. Handspring went on to produce the Handspring Visor, a clone of the Palm handhelds that included a hardware expansion slot (early Palm devices also had a hardware expansion slot, however this was for device upgrade purposes, not peripherals) and used slightly modified software. The next versions of Palm used Palm OS 3.1. These included Palm IIIx with 4 Megabytes of memory, Palm IIIe without flash memory or hardware expansion slot (and available for cheaper price), Palm V with 2 Megabytes of memory, and Palm Vx with 8 Megabytes of memory. Palm VII had wireless connection to some Internet services, but this connection worked only within USA. It used Palm OS 3.2. Palm IIIc was the first Palm handheld with color screen. It used Palm OS 3.5 which provided extensive tools for writing color applications. Some of these newer handhelds, for example Palm V, used internal rechargeable batteries. Later this feature became standard for all Palms. Palm handhelds initially ran on the popular DragonBall processors, a Motorola 68000 derivate. More recent models are using a variation of the popular ARM architecture (usually referred to by the Intel Xscale brand name). This is a class of RISC microprocessors that is widely used in mobile devices and embedded systems, and its design was influenced strongly by a popular 1970s/1980s CPU, the MOS Technology 6502. Palm Computing was spun off into its own company (called Palm Incorporated) in 2000. Handspring later merged with Palm to form palmOne in 2003 when Palm Inc. split into companies based upon selling hardware (palmOne) and the software (PalmSource). In 2005, palmOne acquired the full rights to the Palm name by purchasing the shared rights PalmSource owned and changed names back to Palm again. PalmSource was acquired by ACCESS Systems in 2005, which subsequently sold the Palm OS source code back to Palm, Inc. in December, 2006. Palm handhelds continue to advance, including the ability to become hard drives on computers via USB cables, and are beginning to merge with smartphones. The "Treo 700w" is one of the latest offering that combines a Palm handheld with mobile phone, e-mail, SMS, and instant messaging. It is the first Palm device to use Windows Mobile instead of Palm OS. It is widely expected that Palm handhelds as a PDA-only device will disappear as multi-function Palm handhelds like the Treo 650 decline in price. Multi function devices include several different abilities in the same package such as: an MP3 player, a camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or several other options. The Treo 650+ series is a multi-functioning series, packing in a camera,MP3,Bluetooth,and a phone. The Zire 71 and 72 are examples of this also. In 2007 Palm released the Palm Centro, a consumer-oriented smartphone running the Palm OS. It took a step away from the familiar Treo smartphone by making it thinner and changing the overall appearance of it. The Centro is a very successful smartphone as it combines many features with a lower price. Since then, Palm has also released the Palm Treo 500v, a similar device to the Centro which is also directed at the consumer market. There have been rumours for quite some time about the next business-oriented Treo Model, commonly referred to as the Treo 800w. More and more evidence has pointed towards a release date in Q3 2008. There are reports of it featuring WiFi, GPS, 3G, and many other features that Treo users have been longing for. No company has officially announced the product as of yet, but Sprint has noted that there will be a new Windows Mobile 6.1 Treo coming soon. Rumours also indicate the release of a GSM version of the product for Vodaphone. Palm's newest offering, the "Foleo", was cancelled before being publicly available. List of Palm PDA modelsPalm Handhelds models* Z22 Palm T/X ML handheld bundle pack Palm Treo Smartphones * Treo Pro Centro Smartphones* Palm Centro Discontinued Palmtop modelsThe following PDAs are no longer in production. |
||
| This Domain is for sale make an offer to: offers@thepalmtopshop.co.uk |
Rechargeable Batteries and Chargers for all your needs |