Old Hardware Emulated :POSE Emulating The Palm Pilot (Part 7)

 

The Palm m505

The Palm m500

The last article covered the Palm m500, which was the entry level model in the new m500 series offered by Palm Computer. The m505, which is covered in this article, was released alongside the m500 on March 6, 2001. This was the higher-end model that embraced a feature that was rapidly becoming a must have for Palm owners: a color display.

The m505 though wasn't the first Palm model that came with a color screen. That honor went to the IIIc, which was released in February 2000 with a price tag of $449. This Palm was more expensive than previous models. Despite that though, it was very popular and was rapidly embraced by many Palm users. The m505 was a follow-up that cost even more money than the IIIc at release: $499. However, like the IIIc, the m505 sold like hotcakes.

It should be noted that at this time, the Palm devices weren't the only handhelds that had a color display. Contemporaries like the WinCE devices and the Psion Series 7 handheld computers running the EPOC32 OS, and the Nokia 9210 Communicator running the SymbianOS, all had color displays as well during this time. The Apple Newton had already been dead for a few years by 2001, so it wouldn't be fortunate enough to see a color display. However, Apple isn't one for just resting on dead projects. I'm sure they're working on something right now. 

Anyway, despite the availability of the competitors, the shear domination of the Palm handhelds made color displays rapidly become the norm in portable computing, and why shouldn't they?

Spec's wise, it was a carbon copy of the m500, with the primary difference being that it had a 160x160, 16-bit display capable of 65,536 colors. This was a significant upgrade over the IIIc which had a 256 color display.

Software developers rapidly embraced the new featured offered by the highest-end Palm, and applications would support the new model as well.

Functionality-wise, very little changed with PalmOS with the incorporation of color. In fact, the vast majority of the core applications maintained their monochromatic look, with the only difference that the main color scheme was now blue on white instead of black on greenish-looking background. The only core Palm application that got a significant upgrade was the Calculator, which now had colorful button.

Today, a scheduling app for the Palm

VDI, the image viewer mentioned in previous articles, supported color as well.


Plucker, an offline web-browser, in action.

The Web - Offline!
There was this program released for the Palm called Plucker. Plcuker came in two parts, the off-line web-browser that could render sites on the Palm, and a Windows utility that downloaded the websites feeds that would download the page and create a Palm-compatible version of that site that could be rendered on the Palm. These off-line copies could then be downloaded automatically onto the Palm via a Hotsync and stored locally on the device.

These offline copies of the web-pages came complete with hyperlinks and the pages while conforming to the Palm aesthetics. Even some of the web-page's graphics were incorporated as well. This task could largely be accomplished with ease as a typical website from the late 90's/early 2000's were still largely text-based. Their wasn't CSS, or Javascript with the vast majority of these pages, and HD video and HTML5 didn't exist at the time. The web was a completely different place in 1999 than it is today. 

Most Palm users didn't have the Palm Internet Kit or modems in their devices. Several didn't have subscriptions to a Palm-supported ISP. However, several of these users had internet ever at work or their home and browsed the web on their desktop browsers. They could use these computers 

A program like Plucker would have scan a website, crawl through the links, download everything within those links, and then create a offline version of that website that would be stored on the Palm for the user to browse, as if searching the website online with a Internet connection. The program would typically go 2-3 levels below the links and download everything in those level, even links and web-pages on 3rd party sites.

A home user would typically power on their computer at home, run Plucker, which would have a feed of preferred websites, and download everything from those sites, ripping out a lot of the HTML code, create an offline copy of the site, which would then be synced automatically to a connected Palm. Because Plucker did the conversion of the site as if it was like a localized "proxy server", it could convert the page much faster locally then a waiting for the distant proxy to do the same job. Because PC's also typically had faster modems than their mobile counterparts, it could also download those pages much quicker than a Palm could.

Office users could do the same thing vice-versa and grab the latest news and information right before going to a home that might not have Internet. Once home, they did what everybody did before the proliferation of high speed internet; go to some idiot box located in a certain room in the house and turn it to a local channel at a particular time to get the latest news. If they had the "rabbit-ears" antenna, they probably only had 3 mundane, watered-down sources of news to choose from (4 if one was unlucky enough to get Fox News). If one had cable, you could add CNN the mix (which probably sucked as much back then as it does today). This is the garbage one dealt with before on-demand news and high-speed internet. 

For user that with internet connections that were liberated from the shackles of that wasteland called broadcast news, they could download offline versions of the BBC, the NYTimes, USA Today, AP, NPR, etc. This was the closest that one could get to on-demand news without a internet connection. What was amazing though was still Plucker was still a real browser displaying webpages using HTML. These users could surf a offline copy of the site as if it was a online version of that same website. These users could surf their offline pages on their lunch break, or on the plane or train ride back home.

One has to remember that the Internet, while rapidly being embraced, wasn't a everyday thing for many people in the late 90's/early 2000's. A utility like Plucker would have made sense for the typical user who probably didn't have internet at work or at home, but had a computer with a Internet connection that they could utilize for the latest news and information. Even Palms without a modem couldn't be cheated from the web!
Articles of Interest

Palm V - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_V

Palm OS Emulator - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_OS_Emulator

Palm, Inc. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm,_Inc.

Palm IIIc -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_IIIc

Freescale DragonBall - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freescale_DragonBall

Palm (PDA) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_(PDA)

3Com - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Com

Palm m500 series -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_m500_series

Palm V -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_V

Palm VII -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_VII

Palm’s progress: The rise, fall—and rebirth—of a legendary brand - https://www.fastcompany.com/90246716/palms-progress-the-rise-fall-and-rebirth-of-a-legendary-brand

Palm: The Rise and Fall of a Legend - https://www.technobuffalo.com/palm-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-legend

Palm m500 series - https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Palm_m500_series

Palm m500 specs (CNET) - https://www.cnet.com/products/palm-m500-p80800row/specs/

Palm m500 and m505 officially launched - https://www.geek.com/mobile/palm-m500-and-m505-officially-launched-545768/

Nokia 9210 Communicator - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9210_Communicator

Symbian - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian

Psion Series 7 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_7

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