PDA Odyssey

It dawned on me last night that until about 2 weeks ago, I’d been without a cell phone since April 1998. And that old Radio Shack CT-350 was heavy and big. Damn that sucked.

It got me thinking further about technology and gadget creep. I never really carried much of anything with me when leaving the house until 1996. That year, my wife gave me my first PDA – a Radio Shack EC-379:

Your Radio Shack 34K Electronic Organizer Auto Phone Dialer with Three Phone Directories is a pocket-size data organizer. It’s great for the person on the go, combining a telephone directory, schedule alarms, calculator, and more in one compact, easy-to-use package.

That little PDA was thin enough and a little wide, but still fit in most shirt pockets. I took it everywhere. I felt naked without it. I dumped all of my address information into it immediately and the 34K memory worked well enough for that purpose. The appointment function of the EC-379 was fine for future scheduling, but you had to keep the datebook free of past events or you’d run out of memory. So, I still used Lotus Organizer and later Outlook for my permanent calendar. The auto phone dialer function was cool and usually worked without hesitation. Unfortunately, in a few years, once everyone started getting email addresses I realized the EC-379 had no field for email addresses. Further, it had no “@” on the keyboard. Of course, in 1996 that wasn’t a necessity yet, so I can’t fault Tandy on that one.

I loved that little PDA and used it for several years (it still works), until my wife once again read my mind in December 1998 and got me a Palm IIIx, which I promptly upgraded to a Palm IIIxe by adding additional 4 mb of memory (making 8 mb total) and upgrading to the newest version of the Palm OS. The downside of converting was that I would now need to learn a new method of “writing” called Graffiti. I soon got the basics down and was entering text rapidly and efficiently.

Now I could carry my permanent schedule with me as well as my address book. No more printouts and partial listings in the EC-379. Further, importing my old Lotus Notes calendar and my Outlook calendar into the Palm Desktop software put everything in one place and freed up some space on my harddrive. Added bonus! I could now excercise my inner kid by playing games on the Metro – Tetris, Mahjongg, and Galax were my first diversions. I soon discovered Peanut Press, which later became Palm Digital Media and started buying books as well as downloading more from various other sources. At any given time I will have 5 – 10 books on my PDA in various stages of being read. Adding Documents to Go and a Landware keyboard to the entourage made the PDA even more convenient and useful. My conversion to full-blown techno-dweeb was progressing nicely.

In December 2001, the wife again upgraded me, this time to a Palm VIIx. This model, which was being phased out of the Palm line when she purchased it was a vast improvement over the sturdy Palm IIIx(e) that I had been using. Fortunately, the Landware keyboard and all the various software worked just fine. The transition was seamless. While I was still a cellphone free man, I did have email and internet capabilities and used them frequently via various webclipping applications. I also discovered a database application for the Palm OS called JFile. With this application I was now able to carry all of my personal databases with me, instead of using MS Access on my slowass PC, allowing for constant tweaking and data entry. Further, a JFile conversion application ensured that the databases were easily converted to Excel for PC use. (I’m an INTJ, databases are our thing.) Within six months, I soon found myself running low on the 8 mb of memory that came standard with the VIIx.

I carried the Palm VIIx until two weeks ago, when I bought a Treo 300. Now I’m carrying even less stuff, with more memory (16 mb) and functionality, with the added bonus being the addition of a cellphone. The thumb keyboard works fine and I’m getting used to it, but I’m seriously mourning the loss of Graffiti. After four and a half years of using this method of data input, I’ve come to view it as an old friend. It’s become second nature and I don’t like giving it up, but I’ll get used to it. In the meantime, feel my pain while I try to wear out my new gadget and it’s thumb keyboard on the road to the nirvana that is total techo-dweebdom.

Just wait until the combination of videophone/PDA watches start hitting the market. I’m so there dude.