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ScuzzBlog: Diaries March 2021

Entry 11th March 2021: Post 1: 3Com Palm III - Running on a Motorola.


3Com Palm III - Running on a Motorola.

The Palm III was gifted to me by a generous Amigan who wanted to
add something to the collection. To the person concerned .. thanks.

Whilst a little young to be retro this hand held is 23 years old
this month. The Palm III by 3Com was the third generation of the
Palm Pilot PDA series. PDA standing for personal digital assistant.
Released in 1998 it was the first hand held to support infra-red
file transfer and flash ROM. The memory is held on a card separate
from the units motherboard.

The OS for the hand held is Palm OS Version 3 and the CPU for this
tiny computer is a Motorola Dragonball MC68328 running at 16MHz.
She has a massive 2MB RAM and 2MB ROM.

The screen is a 2-bit greyscale and enhanced with a backlight.

In the day these units were very popular and I recall having many
meetings, before phones became more widespread, where PDAs would
be the first item placed on the table. You were greeted with the
constant tap of the screen as consultants dredged their records
for data, dates and phone numbers. I guess the era lasted until
the mobile took hold and they never saw the light of day again. I 
did read an article recently about a pilot that still uses a PDA 
of the period given that he prefers not being dependant on an 
internet service to maintain his records.

So there you have it the Palm III. I was quite amazed that there
was no power adaptor in the box and it only needed two AAA type
batteries. Very simple to use and I did like the way it made sense
of my scribbles. So clever that.

One word of caution to anyone opening the box to this unit. If the
box is upside down in the outer cardboard case the PDA will fall
out from the slot. Nothing holds it in. It happened to me.

3Com Palm III - Running on a Motorola.


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Last updated 11th March 2021

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